


For Me, It's You

by pearly_rose



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Bickering, Canon-Typical Abelism, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, I don't personally ship Tyrion/Sansa, Introspection, Minor Character Death, Modern Westeros, Mutual Pining, POV Alternating, Road Trips, Slow Burn, When Harry Met Sally AU, and general instances of Cersei and Twyin being emotionally abusive throughout, but their pairing made the most sense within the when harry met sally framework, flagrantly mixing book and show canon, short description of domestic violence in chapter 2, short mention of implied rape in chapter 1, well it started out that way in my head but I got a little sidetracked, yeah this is not the romcom you're looking for
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-07-31
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:34:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 34,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24434404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearly_rose/pseuds/pearly_rose
Summary: After graduating Riverrun University, Jaime Lannister and Brienne Tarth find themselves driving to King's Landing together. What starts out as mutual dislike somehow blossoms into friendship. But what happens when their feelings continue to deepen? My take on a Jaime/Brienne When Harry Met Sally Modern AU.
Relationships: (unfortunately Jaime/Cersei at first), Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth, Tyrion Lannister/Sansa Stark
Comments: 277
Kudos: 277





	1. i'm under your skin

**Author's Note:**

> So as the summary says, this was meant to be a When Harry Met Sally AU, but things kind of went off the rails as you will see in, ohhh, chapter one. Please read the tags. I've added parts, I've removed parts, I've Frankensteined parts together. I promise it will eventually circle back. I was hoping to strike a balance between both canons, in a way that felt true to both the characters and the movie I'm drawing inspiration from. Not sure if I've done it successfully, but you be the judge.

_I’ve done it, I’ve found the most insufferable man in Westeros._

Brienne could never have anticipated just how painful this trip would be when Professor Stark alerted her to the flyer on faculty notice board. 

“One of my graduating business students is looking for someone to drive to King’s Landing with him,” Professor Stark explained. “It’s a long trip so he wants someone to take turns driving. There’s payment involved.”

 _Payment._ That’s what got her, in the end. The MBA student was apparently from a wealthy family and would pay an obscene amount for the job of being his glorified chauffeur for a few days. It will be enough to cover her security deposit and first month’s rent in King’s Landing, and she needs all the help she can get.

Her father had done his best to help her pay for her degree, but when Brienne was accepted into the prestigious Riverrun University, they both knew tuition would be a struggle. Even with her partial scholarship for rowing and her TA position with Professor Stark, they were barely able to afford it. And Professor Stark—Catelyn, she always tells Brienne to call her Catelyn—knows how tenuous the financial aspect of her education had been.

By the time she finds out just who she’s making this trip with, it’s too late to back out. Of course she knows the Lannister name—his family owns most of the Westerlands and sits upon a mountain of gold. Jaime apparently works in some capacity for his father, and had returned to school to earn an accelerated MBA. He’s something of a celebrity at Riverrun, the undergraduates whispering excitedly to each other before lectures when they’d walked past him on campus or had sen him in town. He’d gotten into some trouble a decade ago, and it had apparently been all over the gossip magazines at the time. 

She’s never seen him herself, and can’t understand what all the fuss is about anyway. He’s just a rich man, his wealth and fame earned only by virtue of the family he was born into. She’d even admitted as much to Catelyn once. Why her mentor thought this disinterest is what made her perfect for the job, Brienne can’t say. 

So if she had known then that she’d be stuck on a road trip with the most arrogant, entitled, aggravating man she’d ever met, she’d have turned it down on the spot.

It’s her turn to drive, but this man, this Jaime Lannister, has just reached forward and changed the radio station without asking.

“I was actually listening to that,” she mutters.

“No one ‘actually’ listens to Public Radio Westeros,” he replies lazily, playing with the dial until landing on something with aggressive bass and lyrics she can barely understand. 

“Well _I_ do.” She thinks she’s doing a poor job of trying to hide just how infuriating she finds him. “It’s educational. I like it.” 

“Gods, you must be fun at parties.” He twists around, rummaging for something in the backseat. “In any case it’s my car, so I’ll be picking the station.”

 _Two more days,_ she thinks, gripping the steering wheel a little tighter than necessary. _Two more days and I’ll never have to see him again._

He shoves a bag of chips in her face. “Want some?”

She wrinkles her nose, darting a glance at him. “Thank you, but I don’t eat processed food.”

She can see the amused turn of his mouth as he begins crunching loudly in the passenger seat. The other students were right about one thing—he _is_ disarmingly handsome this close, all chiseled jawline and glinting green eyes, his blonde hair falling in effortless waves almost to his shoulders. Brienne’s own hair is more like flax, hanging limp about her clavicle, and she finds herself constantly tucking it behind her ears in her agitation.

She knows what she looks like. It’s been hard to not be hyperaware of it, with the way some people stare. She used to be ashamed, used to try to make herself smaller, thought maybe makeup could work some untold magic on her homely face. But when she discovered rowing so many of the things she hated about herself became assets. Her height and her strength made her formidable, and no one cared what her face looked like on the water.

Though she thought she’d long moved past them, these insecurities manage to bubble back up to the surface while she’s sitting next to the most handsome man she’s ever seen up close.

“So what’s your story?” he asks between mouthfuls, startling her out of her thoughts. 

“My story?”

“Yeah, if we’re going to spend the next two days trapped in this car together we may as well learn a little about each other.” 

She chews on her lip. “I don’t see why that’s necessary. Besides, I don’t have a story.”

“What, were you grown in a lab or something? Some facility where they breed great bloody freckled beasts like you?” He smirks when she can’t help but flush in anger. 

“You really are the rudest man I’ve ever met,” she sputters. “No wonder you had to pay someone to drive with you, you must not have any friends up to the task.”

She’s surprised by his grin. “As a matter of fact, I have a girlfriend, and she happens to be the most beautiful woman in all of Westeros.” 

“My condolences to her.”

He actually _laughs_ at that. “I’d say the same thing—every day I think I’m the luckiest man in the world because Cersei could have anyone she wants, but she chose me. We were childhood sweethearts, it’s always been the two of us. She knows exactly who I am and I know exactly who she is. She says we’re meant to be. Bet you can’t say the same about any…boyfriend? Girlfriend? Face like yours, I’d be surprised if anyone’s even worked up the nerve to touch you.”

She bristles, thinking of Connington. She tries to shake the memory, tries to think instead of the kindness in Renly’s eyes when he let her down gently. 

Jaime knows nothing, _nothing_ about her. She’s not even sure he knows her name, and yet he’s managed to hit upon every one of her insecurities with shocking efficiency. She focuses on the road ahead of her, the leagues of farmland on either side of the car. She will not let him get a rise out of her, she will not give him the satisfaction. They’re barely an hour outside of Riverrun—this trip will be a test of her patience. 

“I can see your pampered upbringing has failed to teach you any kind of manners,” she glowers. 

“Like you know anything about me.”

“Oh, I know _all_ about you,” Brienne replies acidly, eyebrows raised. She’d heard the vague rumors swirling around campus about Jaime Lannister and Aerys Targaryen. Something about Aerys dying when they were in undergrad at Crakehall University and Jaime being at the scene. The story was all over the tabloids at the time—the heir to the Lannister fortune, caught up in scandal—though Brienne had been a kid when it happened and her father shielded her from the details. _He_ doesn’t need to know that though; she wants him to think she has something to hold over his head.

He went very still. “You don’t know the _first thing_ about that.”

“Don’t I?” He’s right, of course, but she finally feels like she has the upper hand and isn’t willing to back down that easily.

“People can say whatever they want,” his voice is tight. “I know the truth.”

“Which is?” She glances over at him again, startled to see real anger darkening his eyes.

“Like I’d tell you.” He plunges his hand back into the bag of chips, crunching angrily. 

She decides to keep pressing her luck. If he can push her buttons, she can certainly try to push his. “People say you’re a criminal.” 

“And yet you took the job anyway. Guess your precious self-righteousness only gets you so far—you still need _this_ degenerate’s money,” he sneers at her. 

And that’s the truth of it, but she refuses to let him have the last word. 

“Your _father’s_ money, I believe.”

He shifts uncomfortably in his seat. Another sore spot, it seems. “Oh yes, Twyin takes great pleasure in holding the purse strings. Why do you think I was in Riverrun getting my MBA in the first place? As if I had a say.”

“Well you should be grateful you’ve never had to struggle for your education,” she replies quietly, thinking of all she and her father had sacrificed so she could earn her degree. “Not everyone’s as lucky as you.”

This seems to placate him. He opens his mouth like he’s going to say something, then shuts it again. She can feel him starting at her. Worried he’s simply searching for another cruel thing to say, she refuses to meet his eyes. After a long moment he reaches to the radio again, and without saying a word, changes the station back to Public Radio Westeros.

————————————————

The rest of the day passes in mostly tense silence, the only conversation coming when it’s time to switch drivers and, later, when agreeing to stop for dinner at a roadside spot just outside of Harrenhal.

He feels badly, knowing he pushed her too far that morning in the car. Sometimes he just can’t help being an asshole. He _enjoys_ getting a rise out of people, and it had been so easy with her. He almost feels sorry for her, but she had the nerve to bring up Aerys and just like that he knew that she was going to be just like everyone else. 

Cersei’s right. Like she always says, no one else matters but them.

He had lied, earlier, telling Brienne he and Cersei were childhood sweethearts. Well, that part is true, he’d just excluded the little detail where she’s his first cousin and their relationship is an enormous secret that only his young brother knows the truth of. Normally he wouldn’t have even let Cersei’s name slip into conversation, but he’s been growing weary of all the secrecy. It’s been a point of contention between them, lately. 

If he’s being honest, there have been many points of contention over the course of their relationship. _Cersei_ is contentious. She’s passionate in every way possible and they fight often. But her rages often end in a tangled mess in the bedroom, so more often than not he finds himself conceding to her wishes. It’s how it’s always been with them. 

He understands Cersei’s reasons for keeping things secret, but he’s never really cared what will people think. Perhaps it comes from dealing with tabloid gossip for most of his adult life. From all of Westeros believing he got away with murder. So he doesn’t push her, because he knows they don’t need trivial labels to define how they feel for one another. In all his life, he’s been devoted to only her. 

He slides into the restaurant booth opposite Brienne, where she immediately buries her head in the menu.

One thing is certain—she is the strangest woman he’s ever met. He wasn’t sure until they got out of the car, but she might even be _taller_ than his 6’3”. He wonders if she can bench more than him, too; she looks like she could be an athlete, with her Riverrun U sweatshirt doing little to hide her broad shoulders and thick waist. 

Her face is another story. Jaime’s used to comparing women to Cersei, having been with her almost all his life. But it’s almost unfair to turn that comparison upon Brienne, so different are they in appearance. He surveys her, sitting across from him—the hard freckled planes of her face, her too-big lips, the nose that has clearly healed poorly from a long-ago break. 

But then there are her eyes. The incongruity is startling—he’s never seen eyes so blue. 

As if reading his mind, she turns them upon him now. “What are you starting at?”

“It’s just…your eyes really are astonishing,” he says, the compliment slipping out unthinkingly. 

“Ha ha, you’re so funny,” she deadpans, turning her attention back to the menu while her cheeks flush pink. “Can you just figure out what you want to order so we can get to the motel sometime this century?”

“No, really,” he continues, unabashed. “Sure you’re stubborn as a cow and you’ve got more freckles than anyone could ever consider reasonable, and I can really put you in touch with a good plastic surgeon for that nose. And that’s without mentioning how you’re built more for football than femininity…but your eyes really are incredible.”

She fixes him with a withering stare, the color in her cheeks growing darker. “Does this whole—” she waves her hand vaguely at him, nostrils flaring “—really work for you?”

“You say that like you wouldn’t fuck me if the opportunity presented itself.” The appalled look on her face utterly delights him. “It’s not your fault, most women would. But unfortunately for them I’ve always been a one-woman man.”

“And what an enormous loss that must be for women everywhere,” her voice drips with sarcasm even while it rises two octaves. 

“So I’ve been told.” He grins at her obvious discomfort. “Come on, don’t be embarrassed. Are you really saying you wouldn’t? I’ve been told I’m _quite_ good at it.”

“You have a _girlfriend,_ ” she sputters. Her eyes have gone comically wide.

Gleeful, he picks up on the edge of panic in her voice. “Oh! Oh, I see. So you’ve never had good sex.”

“You—that is—” her eyes are darting around, refusing to look at him “—that is completely beside the point! And—and— _inappropriate_ and you are not as charming as you think you are, Jaime Lannister!” 

His point proven, he laughs. “All I’m saying is, if you’d ever had good sex, you wouldn’t be so quick to pass it up.”

Her face is beginning to turn a rather remarkable shade of puce just as the waitress arrives.

“What can I get for you two?” she asks, pen poised and oblivious to what she’s interrupted.

Jaime smiles up at her, turning away from Brienne’s outrage. “I’ll have a cheeseburger, with everything.”

“And you, dear?”

“Um,” Brienne tears her eyes off Jaime. “The chef’s salad, please. But I’d like grilled chicken instead of turkey. And if I can have extra tomatoes instead of the cheese. And the dressing on the side.”

Jaime can’t help but chuckle as the waitress scribbles all the substitutions onto her pad. Absurd as Brienne may be, she is also oddly endearing.

“Please,” she adds.

He grins as the waitress walks away, directing Brienne’s ire back to him. He holds up his hands in mock surrender. “I’m sorry, you’re just so easy to mess with. I promise, I’ll try to play nice from now on.”

She’s about to say something when her phone suddenly buzzes on table between them. The screen lights up with the word “DAD” and a picture of a silver-haired man pulling a funny face.

She snatches it up when she sees Jaime’s eyes flicker to the screen. “I have to take this.”

She disappears out the doorway, a little bell jingling overhead as she leaves. He watches her while she walks back and forth outside the window, because there’s not much else to watch anyway. He sees her smile for the first time all day as she speaks into the phone. There’s something endearing about her face when she smiles, her features become softer when her eyes light up with genuine emotion.

She doesn’t return until after the food’s arrived.

“How’s _dad_ doing?” he asks in what he hopes is a conversational tone.

She eyes him warily. “He wanted to see how the drive is going.”

“That must be nice,” he says sincerely. “Having a parent who cares.”

Those big blue eyes of hers soften in spite of herself. 

He wishes he could dislike her as much as she obviously dislikes him, but there’s something fascinating about her that keeps him wanting to dig past her defenses.

“You still haven’t told me about yourself, Brienne Tarth,” he continues. “I’m assuming you’re _from_ Tarth with a name like that?" 

“I am,” she replies mulishly, stabbing a fork into her salad. 

“And?”

She shrugs. “The Tarths were never one of the great houses of Westeros. The name’s all that’s left.”

“And why did you come to Riverrun University? Bit far from home.”

“I was offered a partial scholarship for rowing, and I…it’s a good school, so it made the most sense.”

“Very practical of you.” Rowing. That makes sense; she’s certainly built for it. On the nights he found himself plagued with nightmares of Aerys, he’d often drag himself out in the cool light of dawn for a run along the riverbank to clear his head. He’d watch the team out there on the Trident in the early morning, and it would somehow made him feel less alone.

“Yes, well, not everyone has the luxury of choice,” she bites back. 

“I didn’t mean it that way.” He can never seem to say the right thing, and she’s so intent on misunderstanding his every word. “And I told you before, Tywin didn’t give me a choice.”

“I find that hard to believe, you’re a grown man. What are you, thirty?”

He laughs. As if being a thirty-year old adult is an acceptable reason for his father. “It doesn’t work that way in my family. I was packed off to Riverrun for bungling the Whispering Wood deal. Father felt I wasn’t representing the business as well as I should, he felt I needed a _lesson._ ” 

“So why go along with it?”

Why indeed. The truth is, he’s had the same thought with growing frequency of late. He hasn’t been happy working for his father for a long time, but the job makes Cersei happy, and while he doesn’t think Tywin is capable of _actual_ happiness, his continued employment with the Lannister family business certainly seems to satisfy his father as well. Even if Jaime can never seem to live up to his expectations. 

Unfortunately, Twyin hadn’t anticipated that shipping Jaime off to Riverrun would afford him far too much time to think. Far too much time to rediscover his passions, to take a few classes unrelated to the MBA his father had insisted upon. Too much time to call up his little brother Tyrion and find himself growing increasingly envious of his choice to cut ties with the business and their father years ago.

He looks up at Brienne, her brows knitting together in confusion as she awaits his answer.

“Family.”

“That’s very _noble_ of you.” Somehow the way she says it doesn’t sound like a compliment.

He sighs. “You wouldn’t understand. The company goes back generations, and there are certain expectations my family has for me.”

She looks at him searchingly for a moment before dropping her eyes down to her food. “Actually I _do_ understand.”

His eyebrows raise in skepticism.

“Family,” she says simply. “It’s just me and my dad back on Tarth. He pretends he’s excited for me to move to King’s Landing and start my new job, but…he’s all the family I have. He would never ask me to, but I know I need to move back eventually. So he’s not alone. And I feel awful because I don’t want to.”

He looks at her thoughtfully. “You feel guilty because you love your father so much, and I feel guilty because I love mine too little. We make quite the pair.”

Something flickers briefly in her eyes. Once it’s gone there is a softer set to her jaw—her whole demeanor seems less tense as she turns her attention back to her salad. 

When they finish eating he lingers to settle the bill, while she heads outside to wait by the car. He runs his fingers tentatively over his pocket before putting his wallet back. He shouldn’t check. It doesn’t matter, really. 

Curiosity gets the better of him, and he takes his phone out. The screen lights up and reveals…nothing. No missed calls, no texts. It’s fine. He and Cersei have been together so long, they don’t need to check in with each other every day. Actually, since he’d left for Riverrun they had gone days in a row without talking. They don’t need to talk every day to know they love each other. She’s never been demonstrative, it’s not her style. 

_Still,_ he thinks, brushing his thumb over the screen, _doesn’t she want to know how the drive is going?_

It doesn’t matter. 

He shoves the phone back in his pocket, steps outside to join Brienne, and immediately knows something isn’t right.

He hears them before he sees them, leering and crude as they taunt her. She’s standing next to the passenger-side door waiting for him, her long arms wrapped around her torso and chin tucked like she’s trying to disappear into herself. As if she could ever be inconspicuous. 

He thinks suddenly of Tyrion who, though quite the opposite of her in stature, has similar difficulty in making himself unnoticeable. A rush of affection washes over him as he steps forward to intervene, though for his brother or Brienne, he cannot say. 

“Now, that’s no way to talk to a lady,” he says, his tone dangerous. 

Four men stand a short distance away from her, and Jaime doesn’t have to look close to know that they’re scum. One even seems to be missing most of his nose.

“This _your_ lady?” the noseless one says, flicking his cigarette butt in Brienne’s direction. Jaime notices she’s got a small blade clutched in one hand. _Smart girl._

He approaches the scene slowly. Her eyes are pleading with him over the roof of the car.

“She is, and I’d bite my tongue if I were you, because _my lady_ could knock your teeth out. That is, if you have any.”

The men laugh darkly. The greasiest one places a hand on his belt. “Rich boy, you think you’re any match for us?”

“Oh, we’re not going to fight.”

The tallest one gives him a sharp-toothed smile—it almost looks like he’d filed them down to points. The realization makes Jaime a little ill. “Bet she’d put up a good fight. Though I’d turn her ‘round first so I don’t have t’ look at that face.” His comrades snicker mirthfully behind him. “Ugly or not, she’s still got a working cunt.”

Jaime grins even as his stomach twists with anger, unable to look at Brienne, unwilling to see the look on her face. “I don’t get the impression you’d even know where to stick it in. A woman’s anatomy is a bit different from the livestock I’m sure you’re used to.”

The man’s expression goes dark just as Jaime presses the unlock button. Brienne’s in the car in an instant and he’s right behind her. The men are advancing towards Brienne’s side as he presses the ignition and throws the car into drive, slamming his foot onto the gas to hop the curb and get them back on the road. He catches a last glimpse of them in the rearview as he speeds away.

“Why did you say that?” she whispers, her large eyes fearful. 

He ignores her, merging onto the highway.

“We should have just left, you didn’t have to goad them like that.”

“And you were going to, what? Stab them with your pocket knife?” He lets himself glance at her. She’s still got her arms wrapped around her middle, protecting herself, though at least she’s put the knife away.

She doesn’t answer.

“Brienne, are you okay?”

Suddenly the car floods with light, and he can hear a pickup revving aggressively behind them. 

Brienne twists around in her seat to get a better look. She suddenly becomes very still in the corner of Jaime’s vision. “Jaime, it’s them. It’s their truck,” she says quietly. She seems genuinely frightened.

He tries to sound flippant, to put her at ease. “Relax, I know their type, they’re just bluffing.” 

“I don’t think they are.”

The truck swerves into the lane beside them, quickly drawing even with them. The fat one’s in the passenger seat, though Jaime’s barely able to register his tattoo-covered face before flinching at the can of beer being hurled at his window. He manages not to swerve into the shoulder even as Brienne lets out a yelp. 

“They’re just trying to scare us. They’ll get bored soon and pass us,” he sighs, easing up on the gas. “See? They’re doing it already—”

But the truck doesn’t pass them. 

He realizes a second too late what’s about to happen, when the truck veers suddenly into his lane. Black metal fills his vision, _too close, they’re too close,_ he manages to think, before the truck slams into the driver’s side of his car. He throws his arm across Brienne’s chest. The last thing he remembers is the lurching feeling in his stomach as the the sky turns to asphalt.


	2. you’re the only one here who can switch out the dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Confessions at Harrenhal Hospital

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: description of domestic violence

The smell of the hospital brings Brienne immediately, viscerally back to childhood. She spent many long hours at her mother’s bedside, too young to really understand what was happening, but doing her best to be quiet and still. She and her brother, Galladon, had made a game of it—who could pretend to be a statue the longest? If they did a good enough job, maybe mother could come home.

He was older than her, he always did it better. He could sit for ages without so much as blinking. But mother never did come home.

Then scarcely two years later Brienne was back, perched on her father’s lap in the waiting room though she was already growing too big for such things. She still remembers the way his grip tightened around her when the maester broke the news. They had done everything they could but Galladon could not be revived. He had drowned, caught in a riptide. 

He was ten.

Now she sits in another hospital, the antiseptic smell filling her nostrils as she practices being still at the beside of a man she’d met little more than a day earlier. A man she thought she despised.

The pickup had pulled into the parking lot while she was waiting for him. She’d become used to cruel taunts from a certain type of man, looking the way she did. Tall, athletic, and unladylike, it often seems like her mere existence offends them. How many times had strange men called her ugly to her face, or sniggered that she couldn’t possibly be a woman? 

So when four men climbed out of the truck she’d slid her pocketknife out and flicked it open, wrapping her arms around her waist to hide it from view. 

They’d only managed to pepper her with the standard insults before Jaime arrived. She’d hoped they would be on their way, but even knowing Jaime as little as she did, she should have known it wouldn’t be that easy. 

She closes her eyes and remembers the way her stomach jerked when the car went airborne, like the drop on a roller coaster. The airbags went off at some point, and she thinks they only rolled once before landing right side up in a cornfield. Jaime’s arm was clamped across her through it all. 

“What are you doing here?”

His voice, hoarse from disuse, startles her. She didn’t realize he was awake, but he’s got an eye cracked open, staring at her from the hospital bed. He had woken briefly after surgery, long enough for the maesters to orient him and explain what happened, and for the police to take his statement. She had still been in the waiting room at the time. 

“You’re in the hospital, Jaime.” She shifts closer. 

“I was able to deduce that, thanks.” Even pumped full of painkillers he manages his usual sarcasm. “I mean, why are you _still_ here. The car’s totaled, the job’s done.”

She looks at her lap, at her hands twisting there. “Well I…I called your father with your phone. I left him a voicemail. Then I called Cersei.” She swallows.

A flicker of realization washes over his face, before he quickly slips back into a mask of indifference. He has her listed as “Cousin Cersei” in his phone, surely he knows that Brienne now understands the implications of their relationship. 

“And she was upset but she said she couldn’t get away from from work.” She watches as he’s unable to hide the hurt in his eyes. “I just didn’t think you should be alone.”

He visibly softens at that admission, even though she can tell he’s searching for something cutting to say back. 

Instead he says, “You’re hurt.”

She brings her hand up to ghost over the bandage covering her cheek. Debris had cut a jagged path across her face, and it had been stitched up. “So are you.”

He shifts his attention to his right hand, elevated and bandaged post-surgery. “They said it was crushed in the impact.”

“You put your arm out. To protect me,” she responds. She’s bruised, he’d held her so tight.

He looks out the window. “I don’t remember that.”

She studies him while he looks away, watching a muscle work in his jaw. His face sports cuts and bruises like hers, but the most grievous injury is his hand. “Well, thanks all the same.”

He swallows, wincing. Changes the subject. “What happened to those assholes? Did they catch them?”

“Oh yes, their truck was hard to miss, after that.” She smiles darkly. “It also helps that I’d memorized their license plate.”

He raises his eyebrows, impressed. “Well done.”

“Habit,” she replies, nonchalant. 

“So this happens to you a lot? Could’ve warned me.”

“Men being disgusting? Yes it happens all the time. Though usually they get bored when they can’t get a reaction out of me.” She glares at him. “Now that I know what happens when a knight in shining armor comes to my rescue, I think I’ll stick with my usual method.”

“Are you saying this is my fault?” He uses his good hand to gesture to the room.

“I’ve just never found that it helps to escalate things!”

“Fine then, next time I’ll just let them have their fun then, shall I?” he snarls. “I’ll be sure not to make a _habit_ out of saving young maidens.”

She throws herself back in her seat, arms crossed. “Has anyone ever told you how arrogant you can sound?”

“Often. It’s a Lannister family trait.” 

She hates how he somehow looks even more handsome when he’s smirking at her, even now, fresh from surgery, half awake and full of painkillers.

He scrubs a hand over his face, instantly deflating. “Did you call my brother, too?”

“You didn’t mention having one,” she replies, uncrossing her arms. 

“I should call him.” He says it more to himself than her. 

She rustles through the hospital bag of his belongings. “Here, I charged it for you.” She leans forward, his phone in her outstretched hand. “I’ll go get something to eat.”

He takes it awkwardly in his left hand, and her fingertips brush against his. She tells herself the jolt in her stomach is just the memory of the crash.

————————————————

Tyrion had wanted to get on the next flight to Harrenhal. “You’re my big brother, and you’re all alone in a hospital in the middle of nowhere. You can’t stop me from coming, I’m much better at being obnoxious in person. I’m not nearly as good at annoying you over the phone.”

It had always been Jaime coming to Tyrion’s rescue growing up; it felt odd to have the roles reversed. 

Having been born with dwarfism to a cruel and demanding father meant that Tyrion was often on the receiving end of undue scorn, so Jaime had spent their childhood looking out for his little brother in any way that he could. Be it protecting him from their father’s perennial disappointment, or shielding him from the cruelty of other children, Jaime was always there if his brother needed him. Even Cersei had joked about Tyrion’s stature before, though she’d always deny it later.

Jaime smiled. “I’m not alone. That student who I paid to drive with me is here.” 

“Seven hells, is she hurt? Father won’t appreciate another lawsuit.”

“No, just some stitches. She’s off wandering the cafeteria.”

“Well thank the gods for small favors, I suppose,” Tyrion mused. Jaime could hear him typing something. “Look, there’s a flight that gets in early tomorrow—”

Jaime cut him off. “Don’t. They’re only keeping me a couple more nights, and then I’ll fly home and meet with a maester in King’s Landing. You don’t have to worry about me.”

“Someone should,” his brother had replied quietly.

 _Someone should._ He knew who Tyrion meant. Jaime hasn’t spoken to his father yet, but he’d been moved to a larger, private room, so he assumes Twyin has at least been in touch with the hospital. He doesn’t bother trying to reach him. 

He did call Cersei, though. She answered, weepy and apologetic. She was dealing with a PR crisis and couldn’t get out of King’s Landing—there’s a promotion in the works for her if she does a good job. She, like most Lannisters, also works for the family business. He’s told her there’s no point in seeking Twyin’s approval, but she’s been trying to prove herself an asset to his father regardless. He thinks the company would understand if she needed to leave for a family emergency, but doesn’t want to push her. He knows it would look odd for her to rush to the bedside of a cousin, when his own father is apparently unconcerned. 

“You’ll be home soon, though?” she cooed through the phone. “When that Tarth girl called she said that your surgery went well, and you’d be able to recover at home.”

“Yeah, it sounds like they’ll discharge me day after tomorrow.”

“Good. I hate to think of you up there in the Riverlands. _Harrenhal!_ ” She’d said the name with such disdain. “I’m surprised they’re even accredited. We’ll get you in with Maester Qyburn as soon as you’re back home. ”

“They’ve treated me well. Actually, I think you might like—” he could hear a man’s voice in the background, muffled as Cersei covered the mouthpiece. 

“Darling, I’m sorry I have to go,” she said. “I’ve just got so much work to do.”

“Oh Cers, of course. I’ll be home soon, I love you.” But she’d already hung up. 

That night, he lies awake while Brienne sleeps on the too-short couch in his room. He’s sure the hospital’s visitor policy doesn’t allow for it, but it seems Tywin’s influence goes beyond the upgraded room. He feels an odd mixture of grateful indignation. 

He can just make her out in the semi-darkness, too many machines and devices in his room for true night. There’s a wet spot on her bottom lip, he can see a bit of light reflecting off it. It’s not drool, he thinks, more like she moistened her lips in her sleep. Her brow is furrowed even in slumber, like she knows he’s watching her and disapproves. 

He wonders what it would be like to sleep with her. He’s only ever been with Cersei—he’s only ever wanted to be with Cersei.

He observes the way she’s contorted herself to fit onto the couch. She’s dreadfully tall. She’s wearing leggings that show off her musculature, though he’s sure that wasn’t her intention. She could put those legs to good use, lock them high around his waist as he moves between them…

No. The thought is absurd. It’s not a true impulse, more of a thought experiment.

He’s been away from Cersei too long.

Brienne is gone for much of the next day, and he’s disturbed by the sinking feeling in this stomach that only dissipates when she returns later that evening. It turns out she’s spent the day traveling between the police station and the salvage yard, collecting all of their belongings from his totaled car. Her arrival finds him pushing an unappetizing dinner around on his tray. To his surprise, she drops a bag of take-out in his lap.

“You didn’t get this from me,” she says as he gratefully unwraps the sandwich inside. 

He wakes again in the dark later that night. Rain beats down in a steady rhythm outside, casting strange shadows across the darkened room. He thinks it must be well after midnight. He seeks out Brienne’s form on the couch once again.

All of the lights are off aside from one behind his bed. He can still barely make out where she’s curled up, her timidity making her look strangely small tonight. He stares at her for a little too long before realizing she’s awake too. The blue of her eyes stands out against the darkness. She’s watching him warily. There’s no sound aside from the occasional beeps from the machines beside him and the steady rain outside. He can’t take the quiet anymore.

“I haven’t been in a hospital since…” he trails off.

“Since Aerys?” Her voice is so quiet he’s not even sure she’s spoken.

“Yeah, since Aerys.” He swallows, his throat growing tight at the memory. “Everyone thought he was this great guy. Student body president, star athlete…he was going to be drafted first round, everyone though so. People treated him like a king. No one knew what he was really like. No one but his girlfriend, Rhaella. If I’d known sooner…”

Those entrancing eyes of hers are huge, staring at him through the gloom, grounding him somehow. He finds that once he starts talking, he can’t stop.

“I don’t know if he forgot I was coming over to pick him up, or if he just didn’t care. Maybe he thought I’d think it was funny.”

Brienne shifts on the couch, unfolding her long legs to face him better. 

“The door was unlocked, and I could hear her crying in the back room. I could hear…he was so loud. I ran into the room and found him beating her senseless. She couldn’t even move, was just balled up on herself on the floor, taking it. I pulled him off her, and then he started in on me. I had to beat the absolute shit out of him just to stop him from killing me. I don’t even know how long I was hitting him for, once I got the upper hand, but eventually he stopped fighting back. When it was over…he was still breathing, but he wasn’t going to hurt her anymore.” His voice cracks and he closes his eyes at the memory.

When he opens them again, it’s to find hers still boring into him. But there’s something gentle now that hadn’t been there before. “He died on the way to the hospital.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

He doesn’t know, maybe it’s the drugs. “I trust you.” 

She worries at her lip, concern knitting across her broad forehead. “Does no one else know the truth?”

He leans his head back, suddenly tired. “Rhaella knows, the police know. I’m sure my father was…made _aware_ of the situation, though he’s never tried to talk to me about it. Just sent lawyers and smoothed the whole thing over. Which of course only made the rumors more salacious, even though no charges were ever pressed.”

“What about Cersei?”

Jaime smiles grimly. “Cers doesn’t like to hear about upsetting things.”

Brienne gets up then, crossing the room to stand next to his bed. She looks impossibly tall again, looming above him like that. “So you’ve kept this to yourself then, for all these years? Gods, no wonder you’re the way that you are.”

“Hey,” he tries to sound affronted but his heart isn’t in it. He’s just so _tired._

She looks conflicted for a moment, like she’s steeling herself. He finds out why a moment later when her hand hovers over his shoulder, though she seems to think better of it and draws away before actually touching him. “Thank you, for telling me.”

He blinks up at her earnest face, consciousness rapidly leaving him. “Going to sleep now,” he slurrs, closing his eyes and slipping back into an empty black nothing.

At some point, he dreams. 

He’s shivering and alone in a dark tunnel, his bare feet submerged in shallow water. _I have to find a way out,_ he thinks. _I can’t stay in this place._ He flings his arms out to search for a wall, and both hands are whole and strong when they land on damp stone. 

He gropes along slowly. A light in the distance appears as a pinprick and grows larger with every step. 

“Is someone there?” he calls out.

The light flickers, and he hears Cersei’s laugh float down the tunnel towards him.

“Cers? Is that you?” But she only laughs again in response.

He moves quicker now, sure she’s there waiting for him, sure she’ll lead him out of the dark. But no matter how much distance he covers the light doesn’t get any closer. He’s moving so quickly that he stumbles when the wall opens up under his hand to reveal another tunnel, forking off beside him. He peers down it, uneasy.

There’s a light in the distance here too, only it’s growing closer all on its own. 

His voice is tentative as he calls out again, “Cersei?” 

“Jaime, is that you?” A woman’s voice, but not the voice he was expecting. “What is this place?”

And when the light is nearly upon him, Brienne lowers her torch. 

“What’s down here?” Her eyes are wary in the dim light, the dancing flames casting shadows across her face. She looks different in this light. She could almost be beautiful.

“I don’t know,” he answers, looking back up the first tunnel. “I thought I heard Cersei.”

Brienne follows his gaze. “Does she know the way out?” 

Cersei’s light flickers in the distance. It seems to grow smaller the longer he looks. There’s something foreboding about it. 

“I don’t think so,” he says. 

“Then come.” Brienne reaches out to him. “Let’s find a way out.”

He looks down at her outstretched hand, her long fingers almost elegant in the torchlight. 

He slides his hand into hers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Listen, I don’t know how that would’ve crushed Jaime’s hand. Let’s just agree to not think about it too hard. Let’s also ignore everything you know about hospital visitation policies and assume the Lannister name has enough pull to let Jaime have any visitors he wants.
> 
> As with Brienne and Jaime's ages (as of this chapter Brienne is 22 and Jaime is 30), I've adjusted Galladon's age a smidge as well.
> 
> Chapter title comes from the song "Lights Burn Out" by Prinze George. While we’re on the subject, I listened to that song and "Thunder in My Head," also by Prinze George, on a loop while writing this chapter and they both are a Vibe.


	3. take me home, i’m ready

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After some delay, Jaime and Brienne arrive in King's Landing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I give you this short chapter with the promise that the story finds its way back to a more recognizable When Harry Met Sally direction in the next one.

The heavy rain has slowed to a persistent mist, the droplets beading down the taxi’s windows as it takes him to the airport. His arm is in a sling, carefully padded around his broken hand, and Brienne is not with him.

She’d stayed through the night again, true to her word to not leave him on his own. But when it came time to head to the airport after he was discharged, she said she’d be taking the bus to King’s Landing instead.

It’s only later that he realizes she probably couldn’t afford the last-minute plane ticket.

Guilt gnaws at him as he checks his bags. The bags _she_ retrieved for him from the salvage yard, from his destroyed car. He’d been nothing but cruel to her, but still she found it in her heart to be kind to him. He doesn’t deserve her kindness.

He lied to her, of course. He does remember throwing his arm across her just before the truck hit them, some mad instinct overtaking him. He barely knew the girl, yet he’d tried to protect her twice that night. He hardly knows why.

His dream had come back to him in flashes throughout the day. That all-encompassing need to get back to Cersei, and his inability to do so. Brienne’s comforting presence. He tells himself it was just his subconscious randomly firing off images, so he’s not sure why he now finds himself actually missing Brienne’s bulking presence. He’s known her three days, and she’d been stubbornly self-righteous almost the entire time. What is there to miss?

They have to pull him aside at security, the new pins holding his bones together setting off the machine. His hand throbs dully as a guard passes the security wand over the sling. 

His flight doesn’t leave for hours yet, so he wanders the small airport aimlessly. It’s not a big town, Harrenhal. Mostly a destination for hikers to shop and eat after days spent exploring around God’s Eye Lake, the ancient Isle of Faces, or the massive castle ruins the town was built up around. The airport itself has been designed to appeal to the outdoorsy crowd, with a soaring timber ceiling and large windows overlooking the scenic landscape. 

He thinks it would probably be a nice place to visit, under different circumstances. 

He’s planning on browsing the gift shop, to find for something for Tyrion. Instead, his eye is drawn across the concourse to the airport’s information booth. It’s easy enough to find out that the bus station isn't very far. He’s told he could certainly get there and back before his flight boards.

Maybe he _has_ gone mad. 

It’s been a weird few days.

The bus station is a madhouse when he arrives. Apparently there’s some massive construction project underway on the main highway out of town, and coupled with heavy flooding from the night before, most of the busses have been delayed indefinitely. He clambers up to stand atop a bench, unsteady with his dominant arm in the sling. He scans the swirling crowd, looking for a glimpse of Brienne’s surly blonde head.

Eventually he spots her, slouched down in her seat yet still a head taller than those around her. He hops back down into the madness to make his way over, taking care to protect his arm from the shove of the crowd as he goes.

“Hey,” he says, nudging her foot with his when he reaches her. “I got you a ticket on my flight, come on.”

She stays seated, staring up at him disbelievingly with those big blue eyes as the crowd jostles around them. 

“Come on,” he repeats. “You’re going to be stuck here all night otherwise, don’t be so stubborn.” 

She speaks, finally, shaking her head a little as she does so. “But…why come back for me?”

“I dreamed of you.”

————————————————

He’s sleeping in the seat next to her, having taken his next dose of painkillers as soon as they boarded. The cab ride to the airport had been utterly silent. She couldn’t bring herself to ask him what the dream had been about. Knowing him, he’d probably say something to make her blush in either fury or embarrassment. Or both.

While Jaime seems completely at home, business class is a wholly new experience for her. She’s never been on an airplane without having to pretzel her legs uncomfortably in the inadequate legroom, so it’s a welcome change. What must it be like, to _always_ travel this way? To have so much money and influence? 

That’s why he had goaded those men at the diner, wasn’t it? He was a man unused to experiencing real consequences for his actions. He said his father sent him to Riverrun as “punishment,” but Brienne still can’t see how a free education at an illustrious university could be considered punishment. But that same father hadn’t come when his son was in the hospital. Hadn’t even returned her voicemail. She’d called her own father while waiting to have her cheek stitched up, and he’d been so distraught she almost regretted telling him. 

The truth about Aerys had come as a shock. The fact that he’s kept it to himself all these years even more so. He’d been so young, younger than she is now. Why put up with all the rumors, all the vitriol directed his way when the answer is so simple? It seems odd to her, that he never even told Cersei the truth—to keep such a large part of himself hidden from her. 

She shakes her head. _Why do I care? We’re not friends. This plane will land and we’ll go our separate ways. He’s nothing to me, and I’m not anything to him._

The bruise on her shoulder aches in protest.

She watches him as he sleeps, just as she’d done at the hospital. Thinking Renly was handsome seems quaint now, with Jaime Lannister mere inches from her. Even bruised and broken he seems half a god beside her. The setting sun casts a glow through the airplane window, and he looks golden. 

_I dreamed of you._

She’s not terribly surprised when a private car is waiting for him when they land. 

She almost laughs, because of _course_ this is his life. It seems ludicrous now, back on solid ground. 

The driver casts a sidelong glance at his broken hand, his bruised face. 

“Fought a bear,” Jaime lies. 

Brienne’s laugh comes out in a huff, she shakes her head. 

Jaime shrugs. “If anyone asks that’s what I’m telling them. Much cooler.”

The driver begins loading his luggage into the waiting SUV.

“Well…” he says, trailing off. He’s looking at her so intensely she’s having trouble maintaining eye contact.

She clears her throat. “Good luck.” _Good luck? What a stupid thing to say._ “With everything.”

He tilts his head, smiles a little, like he doesn’t know what to make of her. “You too.” 

He turns to get into the car, and one last thought comes to her.

“Don’t…” she starts, and he looks back at her, confused. “Only, you should try to stick with the physical therapy, for your hand. It really helps.”

He nods, a mixture of amusement and exacerbation on his face. “Goodbye, Brienne.”

“Goodbye, Jaime.” 

She has to force it out past the lump in her throat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title comes from the song Take Me Home (I’m Ready) by Tor Miller
> 
> It’s pretty obvious that I am not a doctor nor do I have any knowledge of hand surgery, discharge times, or when one is able to fly afterwards. There was really only so much googling I was willing to do on the subject before I got woozy thinking about it. 
> 
> “I dreamed of you.” Jaime VI, _A Storm of Swords_


	4. i’ll be waiting on the other side for you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two years have passed since their trip through the Riverlands, and much has changed in Jaime and Brienne's lives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're back to a story that more closely resembles When Harry Met Sally. Thanks for bearing with me!

**-TWO YEARS LATER-**

She should be mortified, but when the truth comes out she only feels numb. After all, it's not like she's _in love_ with him. But it still hurts, in the end.

“What a fucking scumbag,” Sansa says, slamming her beer back to the table.

“I’ll kill him,” Margaery agrees, placing her hand over Brienne’s.

Brienne musters up a smile she knows doesn’t reach her eyes. “It’s not worth it, honestly.” 

“You always sell yourself short, Brienne! No one deserves the way he treated you, but _especially_ not you!” 

Sansa and Margaery’s righteous anger on her behalf is something Brienne’s still getting used to. She never had close friends growing up. Even at Riverrun, her only real friend had been Renly. She had kept up a correspondence with Professor Stark since graduation, and when her daughter, Sansa, was moving to King’s Landing she put them in touch. Soon after they met Margaery, the petite cockswain on the rec rowing team Brienne has joined. 

They are a type of girl Brienne would have been intimidated by, once. Startlingly beautiful, all delicate features, overtly feminine, and comfortable in their own skin. Brienne never has to wonder why a guy is coming over to introduce himself, when she’s out with Sansa and Margaery. 

Which is probably why she should have been more suspicious of Hyle from the start.

She’d never really dated before him, she’s always been too self-conscious. Over the years her meagre experiences had compounded in her mind, becoming something she now considers a personal defect. So she’s tried to convince herself she prefers being alone. 

First, there had been the Caron boy. She danced with him at a winter formal, once. Both of them awkward with their gangly pre-teen limbs, but she thought he might have actually liked her. Then his family moved away over the holiday break, and she never saw him again.

Then came Ron Connington. Just thinking of him brings a rush of embarrassment and shame that works its way up her neck and cheeks in ugly red blotches. He was the son of one of her father’s colleagues, and the two men conspired to introduce their children in the hopes they’d hit it off. When Brienne arrived for the date Ron took one look at her and laughed in her face, tossing the rose he’d brought at her feet as he left the restaurant. 

She’d lied, later, telling her father the date went well but that they weren’t well-suited.

At Riverrun she’d fallen hopelessly in love with Renly Baratheon, the captain of the men’s rowing team. He was beautiful, so charismatic and witty. And kind to her. When she spoke, he seemed like he was really listening, like he really cared what she had to say. They became good friends, and she occasionally entertained the thought that he might be able to love her back someday. Instead, she was the first person he came out to. 

Even then, she couldn’t help but love him, no matter how foolish she felt for it. He ended up transferring their junior year, and she wept bitterly when he told her. 

After that, she decided there was no in point seeking out love. Not for someone like her. She was too tall, too masculine, her face sporting none of the gentle features that seemed to attract men. More often than not, she attracted startled looks and rude comments.

So when she matched with Hyle on the dating app Sansa and Margaery convinced her to join, she was wary. But that soon fell away as they began talking. She hates to admit it now, but he was charming. He said the right things, laughed in the right places, asked her the right questions and reminded her of Renly in ways she’d sought to forget about years before.

Maybe she hadn’t been thinking clearly, but when Hyle asked for a second date, she agreed. In the beginning he was attentive, calling and texting, and taking her out a couple of times a week. He introduced her to his friends. He even brought her gifts. Brienne felt, for the first time in her life, like she was being _wooed_. She can admit to herself now that she enjoyed it. A few dates in, she let him kiss her, her first kiss. When she told him as much, a few weeks and a few awkward fumblings on her couch later, he seemed startled at the admission. That’s when he started to draw away from her.

After weeks of enduring his distant moodiness she confronted him. He was so weary, when he confessed the truth, unable to look her in the eye. But she could tell he was relieved to have it out in the open. 

The friends he’d introduced her to had bet him he couldn’t get her to sleep with him. They’d made a game of searching dating apps to find the ugliest woman they could, and decided how much enduring her would be _worth_. Hyle had thought he could get the job done in a few dates and cash in. But when she didn’t fall into bed with him, when she said she wanted to take things slow, his friends kept upping the stakes. They found the whole situation hilarious, and Hyle was too competitive to give up. But he realized he couldn’t go through with it when he found out she had never slept with anyone before, the guilt finally consuming him. 

“I really have grown to care for you as a person, Brienne,” Hyle had said. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

She’d nodded numbly, gave him back his gifts, and told him to get the fuck out of her life. 

So this is how she finds herself in a pub later that night with Sansa and Margaery acting as her emotional cheerleaders. She has to admit the heartbreak feels different this time, with friends to console her. 

If she’s being honest with herself, she’d known it was too good to be true from the beginning. She should have trusted the initial wariness she felt, but accepted his attentions because she felt she wasn’t in a position to be choosy. Sansa and Margaery had been so excited for her. “Your first boyfriend!” Sansa had squealed. 

So Brienne pushed through her discomfort, pushed past the feeling that his heart wasn’t in it when he kissed her, because she thought things could be different this time. 

Now free of him, she can admit she feels _relieved_.

————————————————

“Will you ever forgive me? For telling you?” Jaime’s brother is only half joking.

“For telling me that the only woman I’ve ever loved, for almost twenty years of my life, the person I thought was my _soulmate_ , has been cheating on me for years?” Jaime isn’t mad at Tyrion, not really. In fact he feels rather empty. Anger would be a welcome addition.

Tyrion looks up at him warily. “Yeah…that.”

The last few weeks have been a whirlwind, ever since Tyrion worked up the courage to tell Jaime what he’d found out. Cersei had cheated on him throughout their relationship, and Tyrion took no pleasure in discovering the truth. When Jaime confronted Cersei, she didn’t even try to deny it. His broken heart all but disintegrated in the face of her apathy. So this was how little he meant to her, in the end. 

“She’s never liked you, I know,” Jaime admits.

“And somehow that wasn’t a red flag for you.” Tyrion doesn’t sound bitter, only sad. Sad for him. 

He looks down at his brother, the guilt surging through him making him feel almost sick. “I ignored a lot of things.”

“The fact that she’s our cousin?”

“Which of course she used to keep our relationship hidden.” Somehow he’d convinced himself that it was fine. As long as he had _her_ the terms of their relationship didn’t matter. 

“And yet, you still love her.” Tyrion pats shoulder. “Don’t worry, it will take time for your heart to catch up with your head.”

“It hasn’t been good for a while,” Jaime confesses. “Ever since I got back from Riverrun, she seemed different. Distant. Mean.”

“Meaner than usual?”

“Ha ha,” Jaime deadpans.

“I know you don’t want to hear this right now, but you deserve better. There’s someone else out there. Preferably someone who’s not related to you.”

Jaime throws him a dark look. “I don’t want anyone else. I don’t want Cersei back, but I don’t want anyone else either. My entire future just collapsed around me and I have no idea what to do about it. I don’t know who I am anymore.”

Looking back, packing off to Riverrun had been the beginning of the end, and quitting Lannister Holdings last year had been the final drop in the bucket for Cersei—she had been apoplectic when his father disinherited him shortly thereafter. Tyrion had been elated, predictably, happy to have his big brother join him in exile. 

When the truth of her cheating came out, he was the one to end things. Somehow she thought he’d stay. Probably because he’d always acquiesced to her in the past.

“You went to Riverrun and you abandoned me here, what did you expect would happen?”

He’d thought Cersei could see how unhappy working for his father made him, how it hadn’t been his choice to leave, how having to bend to his father’s every whim was draining the life from him and turning him into someone he hardly recognized. 

“People talk, Jaime,” she’d said, when he confronted her with the truth. “People wonder why we’re so close.”

“I don’t care what people think, you know that,” he’d said, reaching for her. Even then.

She’d pushed him away, her lip curling cruelly. “If the public knew—if your _father_ knew! You may not have liked working for him, but _I_ have been working towards this my whole life. I will not have all my work derailed by rumors and scandal!”

Is that what it came down to? Public perception, over love? 

She shifted her beautiful face, arranging her features into something resembling softness. “Jaime,” she’d said soothingly. “Nothing has to change. We just have to keep up appearances, that’s all. It’s just common sense. Which you would know, if you _had_ any.”

He’d recoiled then, shaking his head. Maybe part of him had known all along it would have to end someday.

————————————————

Brienne browses the book display absentmindedly, not looking for anything in particular. Sansa flips through a large tome about the history of The Wall beside her, murmuring something about how her cousin Jon works as a park ranger there. An unexpected summer downpour had driven them to take cover in this little bookstore on Visenya’s Hill. 

Trying not to drip rainwater on the display, Brienne’s eyes land on a novel with an illustration of a knight on the front. Growing up, she could never resist tales of knightly valor and courtly love. She runs her fingers over the cover, unable to resist lifting it up to read the flap. Beside her, Sansa stops talking abruptly and elbows her in the ribs.

“What?” Brienne asks dumbly.

Sansa jerks her head towards the back of the shop. “Don’t look now, but Jaime _fucking_ Lannister is over there.”

Brienne drops the book as if it burned her. It makes a surprisingly loud sound as it lands on the floor. Jaime looks up at the noise, and their eyes meet.

Quickly, she crouches down to retrieve the book. _Maybe he didn’t see me_ , she prays.

“Brienne,” Sansa whispers out of the corner of her mouth. “Jaime _fucking_ Lannister is waving at you.”

Brienne makes a strangled noise and stands up. Yes, there he is standing at the end of the “Personal Growth” aisle, looking just as golden as she remembers and waving at her with barely-concealed bemusement. 

“Do you _know_ him?” Sansa’s whisper is incredulous. “ _Jaime fucking Lannister?_ ” 

“We drove from Riverrun to King’s Landing together after graduation, I thought your mother would’ve told you?” Brienne hisses back.

“Why didn’t _you_ tell me?”

Brienne searches for a reason. In truth, she’s tried not to think of that strange trip. It had only been a few days of her life, as chaotic and emotional as they’d ended up being. There was always too much to unpack about what had happened. 

_I dreamed of you._ She doesn’t allow her thoughts to stray there.

“It was just a handful of days, a couple years ago. He was terribly arrogant.”

“But isn’t that when you had that accident?” Sansa nods towards Brienne’s cheek. The wound has healed, but the white scars it left behind are still visible against her pale skin. “You never said you got that scar _with Jaime fucking Lannister_ of all people!”

She really wishes Sansa would stop punctuating his name that way.

“Seven hells, now he’s coming over here.” Sansa turns around. “Quick tell me, is he really a murderer?”

Brienne recoils at the assumption, forgetting so few people know the truth. She bats Sansa on the arm disapprovingly.

“Brienne Tarth, as I live and breathe.”

_Oh gods._

“Um, hi,” she says. Beside her, Sansa’s eyebrows have flown up. 

He deflates a little. “You don’t remember me?”

“Of course I remember you, Jaime,” she replies, stifling an eye roll. 

He smiles again, seemingly relieved. Sansa clears her throat expectantly.

“And this is Sansa Stark,” Brienne offers, and Sansa’s hand shoots out to shake Jaime’s. 

He takes it, and Brienne catches a glimpse of the crisscross of scars stretching across his skin. “Stark, as in the Winterfell Starks?”

“‘Winter is coming,’” Sansa laughs. “Why, did my mother teach you at Riverrun, too?”

She takes the opportunity to fully look at him while he talks to Sansa. He has a beard now. He somehow looks even more handsome for it, if that’s possible. But there’s also a kind of sadness to his eyes that hadn’t been there before. She wonders what the last few years had wrought for him.

“Sorry?” Brienne asks, realizing she’s missed something in the conversation.

“I asked, how have you been?” Jaime repeats. 

“I’ve been fine.” She hates talking about herself. “You?”

He ducks his head, like he’s embarrassed. A lock of blonde hair falls artistically across his face, and he brushes it away before showing her the book under his arm. _Breaking Away: Recovering From a Toxic Relationship._

 _Oh._

“Brienne just went through a break-up, too,” Sansa volunteers, a little too eagerly.

Brienne reddens. Her fleeting relationship with Hyle—and she has difficulty even calling it that, now—is nothing compared to how long Jaime had been with Cersei. _His cousin,_ she reminds herself. _The man was dating his cousin._ She’s not sure any self-help book will be able to fully encapsulate the help one would need to untangle that sort of relationship.

“Oh gosh and you know what, I forgot I have that thing,” Sansa lies suddenly.

Brienne turns in alarm. “That ‘ _thing_ ’?”

But Sansa’s already halfway down the stairs, abandoning her. “I’ll call you later!”

Exasperated, Brienne turns back to Jaime, and of course he’s grinning. She’s always flustered and he’s always grinning.

“Would you want to grab some coffee with me?”

So she somehow finds herself sitting across from him in the bookshop’s café, and it’s as though no time at all has passed since she was last sitting across from him in that diner outside Harrenhal.

He clears his throat. “Well, I guess I don’t have to tiptoe around the truth with you.”

“About your cousin.” It’s not a question. _He’s_ in love _with his_ cousin. “I’m not even going to pretend to understand. How does something like that even _start?_ ”

“Honestly? I don’t even remember, really,” he shrugs, seemingly at a loss. “At some point things went from innocent to intimate when we were barely more than children. She always said we were soulmates, that we were meant to be. Having her love was intoxicating. Any time I doubted her, she found a way to convince me I was wrong. She’s captivating, so believing her felt good.”

“Gods you really are…” she trails off.

“What?”

“Supremely fucked up.”

And he laughs. 

“So what happened? To end it, after all that time?”

“I started to see her as she really was, and I started hating myself for it.”

He sighs, the heavy, tired sound of a man who’s been trying to pull himself together enough to simply _cope_.

“Or maybe I was the one who changed, I don’t know,” Jaime continues as Brienne takes a sip of her tea. “I was tired of the secrecy, I wanted to love her in the open. But she was more concerned with her _reputation_. That’s when Tyrion finally told me the truth—she’d been cheating on me for years.”

“Oh, Jaime,”

“And here I was, just some lovesick idiot, not even realizing anything was wrong, because I thought we were happy. I knew our relationship wasn’t normal, but I thought we were at least happy,” he sighs, running a hand through his perfectly unkempt hair. “I always believed her when she said we were meant to be together. Why would she say that if she didn’t believe it too?”

“I think some people find it easier to just say what the other wants to hear,” she replies slowly, thinking of Hyle. 

“I didn’t realize it at the time, but nothing was the same after the accident. I knew Cersei was never a _kind_ sort, but I thought that was just how she was to other people. I thought I knew her true face, but really she’d been a stranger to me all along. She was cruel about my hand. She couldn’t understand why I never bought a new car. That it makes me sick to even be in one now, so I walk everywhere instead.” He looks out the window, seemingly entranced by a tree just outside. “And when I finally admitted I was unhappy working for my father, that I wanted try to make something of myself without his help…suddenly I was an embarrassment to her, too.”

He runs the fingers of his good hand across the rim of his mug, thoughtful. “So Sansa mentioned that you just broke up with someone, too?”

“Oh that’s…” She looks away from him, unprepared for the shift in topic.

“What happened?”

_He only started dating me on a bet, he could barely bring himself to kiss me, I didn’t want him to be the first man I slept with, and thank the gods he wasn’t._

“I didn’t love him.” It’s a simple answer. Concise. True. But she remains hesitant to share the rest of the story with Jaime. He seems more amiable now, but can she really trust him with this? There’s still traces of the arrogant man she first met in the Riverlands, though there’s something more subdued about him now.

His scarred hand rests on the table beside his coffee, and she has a memory of sitting in that hospital room with him, knowing that his loved ones weren’t coming, knowing that if she left he would be all alone. She had felt pity for him, to be sure, but something else she hadn’t been willing to admit at the time. Kinship?

He follows her gaze to his hand. “I owe you thanks, you know,” he says, nodding towards it. “They say I’m back to eighty percent motor function. You were right, sticking with the physical therapy was really worth it.”

She shrugs, suddenly flustered. “That was just common sense.”

“I’ve been told I don’t have much of that.”

“You’re very hard on yourself, Jaime,” she frowns.

He grins at her again. “You know, I didn’t like you much the first time I met you.”

“Oh, I know,” she answers, her mouth nearly quirking into a smile at his honesty. “I didn’t like you either. I thought you were the most insufferable man I’d ever met.”

“Most people think that, you know. My reputation often precedes me.”

She remembers the dark of the hospital room, the storm raging outside as he confessed. _He wasn’t going to hurt her anymore_. “Your reputation is unfair to you.”

His smile broadens. She likes the way the corners of his eyes crinkle as he does so.

“What’s the statute of limitations on apologies?”

“You don’t have to do that,” she says, shaking her head.

“Regardless, I apologize for being _insufferable_.”

She returns his smile. “Fine, I accept your apology.”

His eyes search her face and linger on her scarred cheek. “Can we keep in touch this time? I like talking to you.”

“Jaime Lannister, are we becoming friends?” It’s not really a question. She knows the answer, and she’s surprised when she realizes he does too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I've cut out the airport meeting scene from When Harry Met Sally, condensed the timeline, and have twisted the “Joe” character into Hyle. 
> 
> “What’s the statute of limitation on apologies?” _When Harry Met Sally_
> 
> Chapter title is from the song The Other Side by Greg Cox and Emily Sage


	5. but here in your light, we can begin again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime and Brienne's friendship blossoms.

Brienne’s phone buzzes, the text notification lighting up her screen. She looks at the clock, 12:17am. _Who would be texting this late?_

 **Jaime:** r u still awake?

Her thumb hovers over the keyboard, unsure of what he could want. Against her better judgement, she taps out a reply.

 **Brienne:** Barely. What’s up?

 **Jaime:** cant sleep

She’s thinking about what to say next when her phone lights up again. Now he’s _calling_ her. She can’t very well let it go to voicemail, now that he knows she’s awake. She answers with a hesitant “Hello?”

“I can’t sleep anymore,” he sighs dramatically on the other end. “I keep thinking of things I want to say to Cersei, but of course she’s not here anymore to say them to.”

Brienne frowns into the phone. Even though she can’t begin to understand his relationship with his cousin, she realizes how hard it must be for him to suddenly be completely without her for the first time in his life. He’d told her they’d never lived together, to maintain the secrecy of their forbidden relationship, but she’d stayed over often enough that her absence now is palpable. 

“Do you miss Hyle?” She can hear the rustle of his blanket.

“No, I really don’t,” Brienne chews at her lip. “Is that bad to say? We were barely together. But it was nice having someone around, even if I never loved him.”

“I know what you mean about having someone around,” he continues. “The apartment is so quiet now that she doesn’t come over, I keep the TV on all day just for the noise.”

“I do that too, sometimes,” she admits. 

“Don’t you just hate it?” His obvious melancholy seeps through the phone.

“Well, are you watching anything good right now? If I watch one more home renovation show I may lose my mind.”

He laughs. “The Blue Knight is on.”

“Oh, I love that movie, what channel?”

“Seven.”

She changes the channel just as the actress onscreen kneels in her armor before Goldenhand the Just, as he’s about to dub her the first female knight in Westeros.

 _In the name of the warrior, I charge you to be brave._ Brienne’s lips move silently over the words. One of her comfort movies, she can recite nearly every line from memory. She’d always loved the tale of The Blue Knight, a fierce warrior maiden who, though neither beautiful nor feminine, captured the heart of the dashing Goldenhand all the same. 

“‘In the name of the father, I charge you to be just,’” Jaime intones over the line. “Can you tell how many times I’ve watched this?”

She smiles on the other end, drifting off to sleep with Jaime’s voice echoing her favorite lines in her ear.

Another month on, and Brienne is surprised at how quickly they’ve managed to kindle a real friendship. She thought she hated him, back in the Riverlands. The accident and his subsequent confession shifted something between them, but having lost touch in the aftermath allowed her to remember him only as the arrogant tabloid fodder she’d initially thought him to be.

So getting to know this Jaime Lannister has been somewhat jarring. Where he’d once been cocky and self-assured, she finds he’s now humble and self-deprecating. Completely open with her about his twisted relationship with Cersei. At first she was uncomfortable discussing the topic with him, but she’s realizing that letting him talk about it is helping him heal from it.

From what she gathers, the relationship had been toxic for longer than it had been good. Cersei had constantly belittled him, and it seems to Brienne that she relished the power play of their dynamic. He could still hardly bring himself to level any criticism at her, instead turning inward and blaming himself for having been blind to her pathological failings as a partner.

Given her dearth of experience Brienne never feels terribly qualified to give relationship advice, but even knowing this, Jaime seems eager for her thoughts. It’s nice to feel like she might be helping him, somehow.

They’ve fallen into a comfortable rhythm. They text often and see each other most weekends. When she’s up before dawn a few days a week to practice with her rec team, Jaime meets her afterwards for breakfast at her favorite café along the Blackwater Rush.

“You know, I’ve never been friends with a woman before,” he says, eating the last bite of his omelet with a flourish.

“I’m not sure that’s something you should admit, Jaime.”

“I just mean that it’s nice, I feel like I can talk about anything with you and you don’t judge me.”

“Well, I’m fairly new to this whole friendship thing myself, but I think that’s generally what it’s supposed to be about.”

“All I’m saying is, it’s great.” He looks at her thoughtfully. “We should’ve kept in touch after the accident. I’m sorry we didn’t.”

“A lot happened on that trip. Am I not just a reminder of it?”

“ _You_ were the one good thing about that trip,” he says, pointing his fork at her.

She rolls her eyes. “Don’t pretend like we didn’t hate each other on that trip.”

Knowing it’s the truth he laughs, leaning back in his seat. _It really is inhuman,_ she thinks, eyes glancing over the way he casually drapes his arm across the back of the chair, the artful tousle of his hair, the way his sleeves are rolled up just-so, looking like something the gods had chiseled to remind everyone else of their own shortcomings. Brienne often feels absurd sitting across from him. She tries not to think about what they must look like together—her, with her plain face and large frame, her hair still damp from that morning’s practice, and Jaime looking like he’s just walked off a photo shoot. 

“Brienne!” Margaery’s voice carries across the café, jolting Brienne out of her self-pity. She’s clutching a to-go coffee and waggling her eyebrows as she crosses over to their table. 

At the beginning Sansa and Margaery were, somewhat understandably, flabbergasted by Brienne’s new friendship. 

“What’s he _like_?” Margaery had asked, practically vibrating with curiosity. “Our families run in the same circles, but I’ve never actually spoken to him. You know, with those rumors always floating about.”

“Don’t believe everything you hear,” Brienne had replied, thinking how she had done exactly that before learning the truth.

Sansa looked at her skeptically. “So he’s not dangerous? I tried asking mom, but she said it wasn’t _appropriate_ for her to discuss the personal lives of former students.”

“You met him,” Brienne tried to keep the defensiveness she was feeling out of her voice. “Did he seem dangerous to you?”

“I suppose not,” Sansa shrugged. “But gods, is he handsome or _what_? And single!”

Brienne had blushed. “He has too much baggage. We’re just friends.” She wasn’t entirely sure who she was trying to convince more—her friends or herself. 

Brienne knows they’re still privately confused by it, but at least Sansa has stopped punctuating Jaime’s name with an expletive every time he’s mentioned.

Margaery reaches their table and thrusts her hand out to shake Jaime’s. “I’ve seen you at industry parties, but we’ve never spoken. Margaery Tyrell.” Brienne is infinitely jealous of Margaery’s confidence.

“Of the Highgarden Tyrells, right?” Jaime asks, accepting her hand. “Nice to finally meet you.”

Some small part of Brienne had selfishly hoped to keep Jaime to herself. 

“Well I don’t want to intrude,” Margaery says, indicating her coffee cup. “But I thought it would be rude not to introduce myself to the person who’s stolen our dear Brienne away.”

“No fair, I knew her first,” Jaime quips.

Margaery feigns shock, but a grin lights up her face. “Well played, Jaime Lannister. You’re alright.” She nudges Brienne’s shoulder. “You have my permission to invite him to our monthly bowling night.”

Jaime waits for Margaery to leave before allowing his eyebrows to rise. “ _Bowling_ night?”

“You don’t actually have to come,” Brienne laughs. 

“Oh, no, I have _got_ to see this.”

“Well I’ll have you know we are _very_ cool. We use bumpers and everything.”

“As all true athletes do.”

“It’s more just an excuse to catch up and eat nachos of questionable origin.”

“Is that why you moved to King’s Landing? To eat suspect snack food?”

She thinks for a moment. “I moved here to feel part of something. Tarth’s so small, everybody knows each other and nothing ever happens.” _And I have too many ghosts._ “I could never be a real writer there. The Tarth Crescent is the only paper on the whole island. I couldn’t imagine a life of reporting on tidal patterns.”

“No,” he smiles at her, genuine. “You were meant for bigger things.”

————————————————

He’s realizing a lot of things, of late. Like how unhealthy his relationship with Cersei had been, how controlling she was, how blind he had been to it. He had believed in her so fully when she said they were the only people who mattered. She had painted such a pretty picture of their life together, and it was crushing to discover how little she truly meant by it.

Cersei was always scheming. She’s ruthless when it comes to the things she wants, and she’s never cared who gets hurt in the process. Jaime hadn’t cared either, until he was the one being hurt. How much of her behavior had he turned a blind eye to? How much of it had he encouraged?

Everything had been easier when they were younger. He didn’t question things as much. He followed Cersei’s lead and told himself it was what he wanted, because what he wanted was her. Between his dear cousin and his father, he’d gone his entire adult life without making any choices of his own. It was easier after that to fake ambivalence rather than reckon with his own feelings. How had he not seen it until now?

For so many years he’d endured the whispers, the covert glances, the tabloid articles. He told himself it didn’t bother him. If the world didn’t care to know who he really was, he would shield his true self. He masked his pain with a caustic, sometimes venomous personality. Cersei seemed to love him all the more for it, telling him they were so much alike. _But no,_ he thinks now, _I’m not like her, not like she thinks_. The more he tells himself, the more he’s able to accept it.

Then, of course, there was the matter of his going off and breaking ties with his father. Disinherited, he’s nothing more than a stain on the Lannister name now. At least he had been able to secure what was left of his trust before his excommunication, and though Jaime’s not not sure he’s qualified for anything other than botching cutthroat real estate deals, Tyrion had blessedly offered him a job at his political consultancy. 

All in all, it’s been a shitty few years.

He’d thought of Brienne often in that time, on the nights Cersei wouldn’t stay with him and he couldn’t sleep in the yawning emptiness of his apartment. He thought of her every time he needed to push past the place his brain was telling him he couldn’t get beyond in his physical therapy sessions, of the look on her face when she stood beside the hospital bed as his confession spilled out of him. The surprise that flitted across her mulish features when he rescued her from the bus station. He’d try to shake the image of her from his head, unsure why she would suddenly swim through his mind. 

Even then, he knew that Brienne had seen through the defenses he’d spent so long hiding behind. She’d seen his true self, and stranger still, she’d accepted it. A disgraced trust fund baby buying his way through business school, a callous man hiding his pain beneath a sneer, a fool who fucked his cousin and called it true love. She saw it all, and still she sat with him in that hospital room so he wouldn’t have to bear it alone. 

At the time it had startled him, the act of being _known_. When he spotted her again in that bookshop, her presence had been an immediate comfort. He’s tried to understand why he finds it so easy to trust her, when trusting anyone outside of his family has never come easily to him. Despite her intimidating presence, he's found that she’s actually quite soft just below the surface. Gentle, even. Caring. He can actually _talk_ to her, share things with her in a way he’s never been able to do with anyone else. After all, even Tyrion and Cersei still don’t know what really happened with Aerys. They’d never asked, and he’d never offered. 

He thinks about that now as he and Brienne make their way up and down the grocery aisles, the air conditioning a welcome relief from the late summer heat. She pushes a cart alongside him, her meticulous shopping list in hand with her neat little tick marks, whilst Jaime prefers to simply grab whatever catches his eye. 

“Do you eat anything that doesn’t come from a box?” she asks, peering skeptically into his cart. 

“Brienne, ask yourself: what about my life makes you think I know how to cook?”

“Fair point.” She examines him for a minute, before placing a carton of eggs in his cart. “We’ll start easy.” 

He’s almost compelled to lie and say that of _course_ he, a grown man, knows how to make eggs. But they’re good enough friends now that he knows she won’t judge him for the truth. She won’t take pity on him, either, because that’s not who she is. So she’ll come over and teach him every conceivable way to prepare eggs, with a patience he does not deserve. 

He considers how lucky he is that this woman he once antagonized, insulted and did his best to drive off, has somehow forgiven him. She is kind with him. She doesn’t do it in a patronizing, mothering way, either. The idea that someone in his life could do something for him without expecting anything in return is a curious new concept he’s still adapting to. Which is perhaps why his reply is a little too self-deprecating.

“Are you ever going to get tired of my incompetence?”

“You’re not incompetent, Jaime,” she huffs. “It’s not your fault you were raised in a world where obtaining any practical skill was considered a personality defect.”

“Raised to be my father’s heir and nothing more. Strange they never thought I’d need to feed myself beyond take-out and private chefs.”

She drops a few more items into his cart. “I still don’t know how you survived Riverrun.”

“I thanked the gods every day for the wide world of food delivery apps. And cereal.”

She purses her lips in amusement, something he’s come to know as a signature Brienne move.

She’s not one for showing her emotions, almost like she’s worried she’ll be judged for them. Instead, he’s had to work at cataloging the small shifts in her facial expressions to know what she’s thinking. If she runs a finger over the arch of her eyebrow, it means she’s lost in her thoughts. A slight squint means she agrees with him, but finds him ridiculous nonetheless. A small tilt of the head indicates he’s said or done something so stupid, she can’t understand how he hasn’t accidentally walked off a literal cliff at some point in his life. He sees _that_ one rather more often than he’s proud to admit. 

Her currently-pursed lips mean she thinks he’s said something clever, but is tempering her approval. A victory for him, as far as Brienne’s hidden expressions go. 

Not wanting to revel in his achievement too obviously, he prods her back. “So who taught you to cook, anyway?”

“Oh, my father.” She shrugs. “It’s been just the two of us for so long, and I’d cook when he had to work late.”

“Just the two of you?”

“Yes, um…” He notices her grip on the cart has become a little tighter. “My mother died when I was quite young, and Galladon, my brother, a couple years after.”

He’d had no idea. He’s just always assumed she’s an only child, but how had he not noticed that she so studiously avoids mentioning her mother, in the very same way he avoids mentioning his own?

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize,” he murmurs.

She pretends to be very interested in a package of cheese. “It’s nothing to be sorry for.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I know,” she sighs, the tension leaving her. “It was a long time ago, anyway.”

“Well then it seems we’ve both got dead mothers. What a pair we are.” 

She looks up sharply. “You’d never said.”

He brushes off her concern. “It was a long time ago, too. She died in childbirth, with Tyrion.”

She makes a sad little hum, pressing a gentle hand to his shoulder.

They’ve come to a stop in the middle of the aisle. Jaime likes Brienne’s hand where it is, warm and reassuring, but an older woman tuts as she attempts to squeeze past them. He reluctantly begins walking again and Brienne drops her hand, following, tossing more items into his cart as she goes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from the song Born Again by Josh Garrels. (The whole song is big Jaime energy, I recommend a listen.)


	6. i don't need no lover, but i sure like keeping you around

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She considers him for a minute, thoughtful. “You know, I think you should start dating too. It’s not fair if I’m the only one who has to suffer.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may have noticed the chapter count has gone up by 1! In writing chapter 9 I realized it really needed to be split into two, so there we go.

Fallen leaves crunch underfoot as she and Jaime pass through the courtyard, on their way to the museum’s Ancient Artifacts wing. She’s been looking forward to this exhibit for weeks; a collection of items from The Long Night, on display in the lead up to this year’s New Dawn celebrations.

“It’s a wonder you weren’t a History major,” Jaime grins, nudging her shoulder with his own. “The look on your face.”

She’s awed, it’s true. King’s Landing has more museums than Brienne knows what to do with. Coming from Tarth, with nothing but small fishing communities and long-closed marble mines for entertainment, it’s almost overwhelming how much history and knowledge is available for public consumption here in the capital. She wonders if her fascination with this kind of stuff seems quaint to Jaime, whose family estate in the Westerlands operates as a museum when they aren’t in residence. 

“I just love thinking about how all of these people lived centuries ago, and they each had lives and families and…and dreams.” An embarrassed flush creeps into her cheeks. 

“And that’s the sort of thing that made you want to be a journalist, instead.” Jaime guesses. 

She steps forward to get a closer look at a Dothraki arakh. “I like hearing peoples’ stories.”

They continue to meander through the exhibit until finally reaching the room Brienne is most interested in, where a handful of objects thought to belong to the fabled Blue Knight are on display. 

“What if I wrote about her?” She’s entranced by a sword belt when the thought escapes her lips without warning. She glances at Jaime to gauge his reaction.

“I think that would be brilliant,” he replies, genuine. “You’d do her justice. Plus you love all that research stuff, maybe you’d be able to figure out who she really was. It’s still a mystery, isn’t it?”

She points at the sword belt, decorated with the sunburst design often speculated to be a piece of ancient Tarth’s sigil. “Back home they tell a legend that she was from Tarth, a descendant of the Evenstars.”

“Well that settles it, you’d be perfect for it. And look—” he points to a line in the pamphlet “—half of these have ‘on loan from the Winterfell Castle Historical Society’ next to them. I bet Sansa and her mother could give you all the insider secrets, isn’t that their summer estate?”

“You’re right, I could ask them,” she concedes. “I guess I’ll have to stop avoiding Sansa, then.”

“You’re avoiding Sansa?”

She grimaces. “She’s been trying to set me up with a friend of her cousin’s.”

“Why not go?” He says it like he hasn’t the faintest clue of the very obvious reason for her dread. 

“He’ll take one look at me and leave,” she confesses miserably.

An odd look crosses his face, but it’s gone in an instant. “Not possible. Especially if you wear that blue top you have, the one that matches your eyes.”

She knows the shirt he’s talking about, and she’s shocked it’s something he’s noticed. She feels her cheeks turn pink again. “You think so?”

“He’d be an idiot.”

She considers him for a minute, thoughtful. “You know, I think you should start dating too. It’s not fair if I’m the only one who has to suffer.”

“Oh, I don’t know about all that.” He shoves his hands into his pockets. “I don’t think I’m ready. Just the thought of a date has me breaking out in a cold sweat, I need more time to get comfortable with the idea. But you! You’re younger and more resilient than me, you can handle this.”

She groans, dropping her head into her hands. “Gods. It’s going be terrible, isn’t it?” 

“I’m rubbing off on you too much. You’re becoming a fatalist, like me.” 

“Sansa says he could be the love of my life, and I’ll never know if I don’t go.”

“He could also be the kind of person who calls a sandwich a ‘sammie,’ but you won’t know unless you meet him.”

She sighs, squaring her shoulders. “You’re right. Maybe it will go well.”

It did not go well.

Tormund Giantsbane was not, as his name suggests, a giant. Though _her_ height certainly seemed of particular interest to him. He’d ogled her openly, and remarked on it so often it made her feel almost fetishized. 

“You’re so big,” was the first thing out of his mouth. And though it was laced with none of the usual cruelty, she could not manage to find it flattering.

“And he kept eating off my plate without asking,” she tells Jaime, huffing a little as she adjusts her grip on the large rug she’s helping him carry up to his apartment.

“So he’s pretty considerate, then?” Jaime grunts sarcastically as they navigate a turn in the stairs. 

“That’s not even the worst part. At the end of the meal he took out a set of nail clippers and cut his nails, right there at the table,” she continues, repressing a shudder. “ _Fingers and toes_ , Jaime.”

He pokes his horrified face over his end of the rug while they back into his apartment. “Is that how they do things in the North, then? I’ll have to ask Sansa next time we see her.”

“What was she thinking, setting me up with him?”

They lower the rug to the floor and begin kicking it open in tandem, walking the length of it. 

“If this is what’s out there, I’m going to die an old maid.” She hates the self-pitying tone to her voice. 

He chuckles, though there’s kindness in his eyes. “You’re young, there’s still plenty of time.”

“You say that like you’re anywhere close to being a functioning adult,” she counters.

“I’m eight years older than you!”

“And _I_ had to teach you how to do laundry! _Last month_!”

Admitting defeat he dissolves further into laughter, eyes crinkling in delight. She feels a low swoop in her stomach, as she often does these days at the sight of his smile. Maybe that’s why she had been secretly hoping the date with Tormund would be the failure it turned out to be.

The fact is, she’s been feeling more than strictly friendly towards Jaime as of late, and she doesn’t know what to do about it. When he reached forward and brushed an eyelash from her cheek the other day, she felt the warmth of his fingers on her face for what felt like hours after. 

It’s all rather inconvenient.

So she berates herself for letting moments like that linger in her mind. There’s no reason they should, and allowing herself to examine _why_ they linger would be too confusing. Instead, she tries to recall Jaime as she first met him, the insufferable way he would deliberately push her buttons. But all she can seem to conjure up is the way he made her blush in a way she didn’t entirely hate, no matter what she told herself at the time.

But Jaime is her friend now. Her best friend. Jaime doesn’t _have_ many friends, which makes their friendship all the more important to him. It isn’t fair to him that her stomach turns over every time he touches her, so she tells herself she can simply bury these newfound feelings somewhere deep inside and ignore their existence completely. Which is all very reasonable and good, and somehow very hard to remember when he’s smiling at her.

She thinks maybe there’s something horribly wrong with her. First Renly, now Jaime. Can she not just accept and appreciate male friendship? Why does she always have to feel something more than they could ever feel for her? And then of course there was Hyle. Hyle who seemed sweet and nice. Hyle who turned out to be an imposter. Should she have forgiven him? Could he have learned to stomach her?

She doesn’t want to feel this way. Maybe the likes of Tormund Giantsbane and Hyle Hunt are the best she can hope for. Maybe she shouldn’t hope for anything at all. 

“What’s wrong?” Jaime asks. “You look like your favorite pet just died.”

“I don’t know.” She looks at her hands, feeling suddenly morose. “What if it’s not meant for me?”

“What?”

“Love.”

He tilts his head, and she can only take the look in this eyes for a moment before turning away.

“Brienne,” he says seriously. “If it’s not meant for someone, it’s going to be me. I’m the one who’s only known some fucked up version of love that turned out to have all been a lie. _You_ , however, have got plenty to offer someone. You’re smart, and kind, and you don’t bullshit people. So if anyone gets to throw a pity party, it’s me. The aging, crippled, disowned cousin-fucker.” 

She scoffs. “You are not _aging_.”

“That’s the only thing you’re going to defend me on?” He laughs.

She squints at him, her lips quirking into a smile despite her mood. “Well you’re the one who said I don’t bullshit people.”

“Alright, come on.” He slings an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close. “I’m buying you some ice cream.”

She doesn’t think about the way her skin tingles at his touch as he steers her out the door.

————————————————

“So, this Brienne, then.” Tyrion arches his eyebrows, an unspoken question.

Jaime hands his brother a fresh beer before settling back onto the couch. “No, it’s not like that with us. We’re friends.”

“Truly? You’ve never even thought about it? Did Cersei ruin you that completely?”

Maybe he had thought about it, back in that hospital room. But knowing Brienne now, knowing how _good_ she is, he thinks she deserves someone so much better than him in every way; someone worthy of all that goodness. The last good thing he did was over a decade ago, protecting Rhaella. 

“Why would I ruin the best thing in my life, by coming on to her?” Jaime shakes his head. “I don’t think she’d ever forgive me for it.”

“So what you’re saying is she’s got a great _personality_?”

Jaimes knows what his brother is implying. He realizes, objectively, that Brienne would not be described as attractive. Even so, something about the particular arrangement of her features is pleasing to him, no longer ugly like he once thought. He sometimes wonders how he could have ever considered her ugly. 

“She’s tall,” he replies, diplomatically. 

“Everyone’s tall to me.”

“ _Quite_ tall. A little taller than me, even.”

“Oh, so you mock me with your choice of friends, then.”

The television in front of them erupts in cheers as the Dornish Vipers score yet another goal against the the Lannisport Lions. 

“Seven save us, there goes the championship,” Tyrion groans, before turning his attention back to his brother. “What do you two even talk about?”

Jaime swallows a mouthful of beer. “It’s great, actually. I can talk to her about anything. Having a women’s perspective on things has been enlightening. She doesn’t even care if I talk about my deep family trauma.” 

He’s half-joking on the last point, but there’s truth to it. Cersei had never wanted to talk about things that really mattered, something he’s only come to realize since becoming friends with Brienne. His cousin preferred surface-level conversations, and Jaime’s compliance. But Brienne engages him in debate, makes him question things. They learn from each other. 

“ _And_ she’s been teaching me how to cook, and how to do laundry myself instead of sending it out—I’m saving so much money. Which, given how little you pay me, is a necessary part of my life now.”

“Look at you. You’re becoming, like, a normal person or something. I never thought I’d live to see the golden son become self-sufficient.”

“I know, father would be furious.”

Tryion considers him for a moment. “I’d like to meet her, Brienne. She must be a rare creature to put up with you and not even be sleeping with you.”

“You put up with me.”

“I’m your family, it’s congenital.”

“That argument doesn’t work—father doesn’t care much for either of us.”

“That’s because we’re both huge disappointments, and I’m told father eschewed the full range of human emotions shortly after my birth resulted in our mother’s death.”

“Tyrion.”

“Bad enough I was born with dwarfism, but I also killed his wife in the process. You know that’s partly why Cersei never liked me either—our mother was her favorite aunt, and I was the beastly little creature that took her away.”

Jaime sighs, tired of this old argument. “You didn’t kill our mother. I hate when you talk like this.”

“Oh, so you’re the only Lannister allowed to be a self-loathing depressive, then?”

“Yes,” Jaime responds. “I’m older so I get dibs. It’s the rules.”

“Speaking of depressing,” Tyrion smiles up at him dryly. “What are your plans for New Dawn this year? You know, now that you’ve been excommunicated from the official Lannister celebrations there are other, more endurable parties you could attend.”

“My plans?” Jaime sinks deeper into the couch, settling his feet onto the coffee table. “You’re looking at them.”

Tyrion shakes his head in disappointment. “The fun you could have, if you tried.”

Jaime shrugs. All his life he’s only been to Lannister holiday parties, and they’d been haughty and dull. Usually Cersei would be halfway to drunk well before it was time to celebrate the daybreak, or Twyin would have directed one too many snide comments Jaime’s way, or Tyrion would have showed up with a questionable woman on his arm with the specific goal of starting a row with their father. Jaime would always sneak home early and fall asleep long before it was time to greet the morning with shouts of “Happy New Dawn!” 

So all things considered, he’ll take his chances with the couch. 

But some hours later, after the Lions have lost in spectacular fashion and Tyrion has gone home, Jaime lies awake and wonders what it would be like for Brienne’s face to be the first thing he sees when the sun rises upon the new year.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The line “what if it’s not meant for me/love” is lifted from the song “Don’t Delete the Kisses” by Wolf Alice
> 
> Chapter title from the song Lover by Noah Gundersen
> 
> Next up! My take on a Westerosi New Year's.


	7. but you were something special, i didn't notice until now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just two friends attending a New Dawn party together, nothing to see here.

Legend tells of a night that lasted for weeks, when the whole realm united at Winterfell to beat back the army of the dead. There had been a great battle, to be sure, though of course no historians truly believe a zombie army roamed the lands. The preternaturally darkened skies that fell over Westeros are widely blamed on a series of volcanic eruptions occurring in Essos at the time. Yet the fable still endures. Even now, hundreds of years later, Westerosi come together with their loved ones and stay up through the night in order to greet the morning sunrise; to prove that no matter how dark the night, the sun will always rise again. 

Holiday preparations are in full effect in King’s Landing, its streets now bustling with shoppers searching for the perfect gift, electric candles appearing in every window to cast out the night, and all manner of extravagant parties being thrown. Which is how Brienne finds herself draping seemingly endless spools of silver garland across Margaery’s apartment.

“I can’t believe you two are going to miss my New Dawn party, it’s the highlight of my social calendar,” Margaery complains, cross.

Brienne clears her throat a little, taping a corner of the garland in place. Though she doesn’t think she’s particularly suited to “the social event of the year,” she doesn’t want to lie to Margaery, either. “Actually, I’m not going home for New Dawn this year. I’ll be staying in King’s Landing.”

Margaery claps her hands excitedly, but Sansa seems startled, looking up from the string of lights she’s untangling. “You’re not going home? Won’t your father miss you?”

She’s not sure what to say to that. Sansa has four siblings, her cousin, Jon, and two living parents waiting for her back home. Of course she can’t understand why Brienne would rather stay in King’s Landing.

The truth is, ever since leaving Tarth for Riverrun, she’s found it harder and harder to want to visit home. She loves her father and Tarth dearly, but there are so many painful memories around every corner. Her mother, her brother, her lonesome childhood. The bullying she endured as she grew, and grew, and grew. She feels like she finally has some distance from that version of herself, here. Returning home rouses a part of Brienne that she’s tried so hard to move beyond.

“So you’ll come to my party then? Bring Jaime along, too. Unless he’s got a hot date?” Margaery sends a coy glance Brienne’s way. 

She knows what Margaery’s trying to convey with this seemingly innocent question, but she chooses to act oblivious. Margaery smirks anyway, plowing on. “I’ve heard Lannister parties are a real bore. We’ll show him how the Tyrells do things.”

Brienne hesitates. Margaery is particularly adept at throwing a party, a skill she seems to have been born to, though Brienne can’t imagine Jaime will want to spend his New Dawn with a gaggle of twenty-somethings. 

“I think he said something about having a quiet night, this year.”

“His first New Dawn after cutting ties with his family _and_ going through some horrible secret breakup he refuses to talk about, and he wants to spend it alone? Absolutely not, I won’t stand for it, it’s too pathetic to think about. And you can tell him I said that.”

Brienne can’t quite explain to Margaery just _why_ the breakup has shattered him so deeply, having never revealed the sordid truth of his relationship with his cousin to her friends. She doesn’t want to betray his trust that way. So Margaery continues to badger her throughout the evening, until Brienne finally breaks down and texts him. She waffles on the phrasing, unsure why it gives her so much pause. He probably won’t even want to come.

**Brienne:** I know you’re planning to have a quiet night at home, but Margaery’s throwing a big New Dawn party and said to invite you.

She receives his reply almost instantly.

**Jaime:** well with a persuasive invite like that

**Brienne:** I just know you were looking forward to not having any obligations this year. But Marg wouldn’t stop pestering until I asked.

**Jaime:** do u want me to go?

Brienne pauses. Of course she does.

She loves Margaery and Sansa, but trying to keep up with them in social situations can be exhausting. As much as they try to include her she always feels out of place, constantly trying to stop her insecurities from bubbling up to the surface. She knows she’d have more fun with Jaime there to keep her company.

**Brienne:** Yes

**Brienne:** It’ll be fun

**Brienne:** Probably

Three dots light up the screen for just long enough to make her worry, before his reply comes through.

**Jaime:** k but i have to warn u, i’m incredibly charming at parties

**Jaime:** women will faint

Brienne rolls her eyes.

**Jaime:** men will challenge me to duels

**Jaime:** someone will crown me queen of love and beauty, like in olden days

**Brienne:** Ok Jaime, keep telling yourself that.

**Jaime:** see this is why i need u around, u keep me humble

**Brienne:** Just meet me at 11 and we can walk over together.

**Jaime:** as my lady commands

Brienne smiles to herself. When she looks up she’s met with Margaery’s eyes, sparkling in triumph.

————————————————

Warm candlelight spills from every window he passes, illuminating the snow-dusted sidewalk. Prior to Brienne’s invitation, Jaime had happily resigned himself to a night of old movies and take out on the couch. But then she’d asked him to come to Margaery’s party in classic Brienne fashion, and the thought of spending this wretched holiday with her had warmed him.

Arriving at her apartment, he shifts the box under his arm to ring the buzzer. She gives him a little shove once she lets him inside. “I thought we said no gifts!”

“I know, I know, but I couldn’t resist.” He’s practically vibrating in anticipation. It really is the perfect gift for her; he’ll never be able to top it.

Her eyes are sweeping across the small apartment, as if they’ll alight upon something she can give to him in return. “Well now I feel like a bad friend.”

“Brienne, you’re the best friend I have. I don’t need gifts to know that.”

She frowns at him. He’d almost call it a pout, though he doesn’t think Brienne is capable of being petulant. 

“Just _open_ it.” He shoves the long box into her hands.

She shakes her head, sighing as she tears into his horrible wrapping job. When she lifts the lid off the box she freezes. He grins. 

“Jaime,” she breathes. “This isn’t…tell me you didn’t…” She turns to look at him with a mixture of confusion and awe.

“It’s not like I was using it.” He reaches across her to pull the sword out of the box, placing it in her hands. She looks like she’s afraid to breathe near it. “I thought it would be good motivation for your book.”

“This is a _priceless artifact_ , I can’t possibly accept this.”

“It was a bloody bribe from my father, after Riverrrun, and I don’t want the reminder. It’ll do nobody any good in storage. It deserves to belong to someone who’ll appreciate it.”

She’s looking down in awe at Oathkeeper, her long fingers sweeping over the Valyrian steel. It had been in the Lannister family for generations, though no one paid it much mind. The fabled Lannister sword, Brightroar, is the true jewel of their collection. Thought lost for generations, it was rediscovered when Jaime was just a boy, in an archaeological dig funded by his grandfather. Oathkeeper, the sword the fabled Blue Knight supposedly wielded during the Battle of Winterfell, was more of a curiosity than anything else as far as his family was concerned. Twyin had gifted it to Jaime upon his return to the family business after Riverrun—an empty gesture aimed at placating him into continued submission.

“I feel like I should be wearing gloves or something,” Brienne says, her voice cracking in awe. “This belongs in a museum, not a studio apartment in Fleabottom.”

“Donate it, then,” he replies. His grin returns when he notices her balk slightly at the suggestion. “Or start your own private collection. The point it, it’s yours now. Do whatever you like with it.”

She hefts the sword into one hand easily, her eyes darting across the rubies embedded in the hilt. “Well…well maybe I can hold on to it until I finish writing. For research.” She looks over to him meaningfully. “Thank you, Jaime.”

She returns the sword to its box almost reverently, like she still can’t believe it. He holds out her coat for her to shrug on.

Giving her the sword is the least he can do, really, after everything she’s done for him. She deserves so much more than he could ever give her, but he has to _try_. 

Margaery’s party is in full swing when they arrive. Her spacious loft is humming with activity, filled to the brim with guests chatting, drinking, and dancing. Jaime spots a professional catering staff handing out finger foods and drinks, and music blares from a DJ at the far end of the main room. It’s already leagues more fun than any Lannister party he’s ever been to, and he’s only just walked through the door.

The hours pass quicker than he thought they would. He allows Margaery to show him off to all her guests, and for the first time in a long while he doesn’t feel like a social pariah. 

“Brienne helped steal him away from his evil family,” Margaery says to the laughs of the gathered crowd. “So everyone better be nice to him because he’s ours now.” 

He glances at Brienne to find her blushing at the mention of her name, but smiling all the same. He smiles back, glad to have been stolen by her.

Later they join a game of Pictionary, both somewhat lacking in artistic ability and assisting their team with a miserable loss. Some of Brienne’s rowing team pull them into a lively discussion about politics after, and they eventually escape to take increasingly hilarious photos in the photo booth Margaery rented.

Close to sunrise Jaime finds himself slumped on a couch next to Brienne, struggling to keep his eyes open. Feeling overtired, punchy, and still a little buzzed from champagne, they keep laughing at the slightest things.

“Remember when you hated me?” He pokes her arm.

She dissolves into laughter, having only just recovered from her last fit of hilarity. “I never hated you.”

“You _hated_ me,” he repeats, eyes widening in comical sadness.

“I strongly disliked you,” she concedes, still laughing.

“And now,” he pokes her arm again, laughing too. “Now you’re my best friend.”

Her smile dips almost imperceptibly. She covers a sudden yawn with her hand, turning to look out the window. The sky is finally lightening, a band of faded orange growing stronger along the horizon. “You know, this was always my favorite holiday, growing up. Tarth is so far east, we get some of the first light in Westeros on the New Dawn. My father always let me stay up to greet the daybreak with him. Well, I’d never actually make it through the whole night, but dad would always wake me up when it was time.”

For all the sadness that had happened in her childhood, she somehow still finds good memories to think back on. He might have been jealous of that, once, but right now he feels happy for her. Maybe a little wistful. 

“Well it’s almost time,” he says. “Come on, let’s dance, it’ll wake us up.”

She looks hesitant, like she’s waiting for a punchline, but takes his hand when he offers it. He distantly notices how she doesn’t flinch at the feel of his scars the way Cersei always had.

Jaime pulls her in close then dips her abruptly, and is rewarded with a peal of her startled laughter. He likes how sturdy she is in his arms, but she’s surprisingly graceful, too, as they sway together among the other guests. Her eyes are on a level with his, and it’s nice to be able to look straight ahead into the dazzling blue of them.

“You’re a good dancer,” she admits, her eyebrow quirking in surprise.

He stifles a smile. “The instructors at Crakehall would be beside themselves to hear it.”

“You learned to dance at boarding school?”

The song changes to something slower. He pulls her a little closer and uses the opportunity to rest his newly-shaven cheek against hers. “Oh yes, for all the state dinners we would surely be attending, once we grew from miserable little shits into even more miserable politicians.”

She laughs again and he loves her like this, soft and unguarded. Somewhere behind him Margaery has started the countdown to the New Dawn, the voices of other guests rising in unison around them. 

Brienne does not join in, and nor does he. He can feel the gentle pressure of her fingers where they rest atop his shoulder, and under his own hand he feels the soft fabric of the dress he knows she’d be surprised to hear suits her. The sun is just starting to break over the horizon now, the first rays stretching their golden light out over the city. He has the insane urge to tilt his head just so, it would only be the difference of an inch, and press his lips to hers.

Brienne pulls back slightly. “Do you want to get some air?”

He swallows, nodding. 

“ _3…2…1…HAPPY NEW DAWN!_ ” 

The apartment fills with a chorus of cheers as he leads her out to the balcony. A blast of winter air hits him as they step outside, knocking both the breath and any strange notions he may have had out of him. 

She squeezes his hand, smiling into the rising sun. “Happy New Dawn, Jaime.”

He squeezes back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you can tell, I’ve bastardized some New Year’s and Christmas traditions to have a more Westerosi spin. 
> 
> Chapter title is from the song “False Alarm” by Matoma ft. Becky Hill
> 
> The slow song Jaime and Brienne dance to is “The Man I Love” by Ella Fitzgerald


	8. i don't know where my head is at, i don't know how my heart reacts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa and Tyrion meet, surprising everyone.

Brienne exchanges a glance with Jaime from across the table. Beside them, Tyrion and Sansa are deep in conversation, their table mates all but forgotten.

The two had abandoned group conversation some time ago, having become deeply engaged in discussing the unique merits of a Northern climate. Or at least that’s what Brienne thinks they’re talking about, though there appears to be some innuendo involved that goes over her head. Next to her Sansa laughs at something Tyrion has said, touching his arm as she does so. Jaime quirks his eyebrow at Brienne.

“Well,” Jaime mutters, as if reading her mind. “This was unexpected.” 

Brienne hums in agreement.

Jaime had asked Brienne and Sansa to join him and Tyrion for Jaime’s name day dinner, though clearly neither of them had been prepared for Tyrion and Sansa to hit it off quite so well. 

This was to be Brienne’s first time meeting Tyrion. Jaime thought the two of them would bond over their love of history and writing—Brienne being a journalist, and Tyrion a former speechwriter-turned-campaign strategist. However, it was Sansa who took an immediate shine to Tyrion's storytelling. She listened intently, eyes bright, as Tyrion entertained their small group with stories from his boyhood. The man clearly had a way with words, and she was entranced. Most of Tyrion's stories revolved around his and Jaime's close friendship and adventures growing up together. There was the time Jaime had taught him to get over his fears and dive off the tall cliffs into the sea below. Or the time the two pretended to be great explorers, navigating the many twisting tunnels below Casterly Rock in search of long-lost treasure. Tyrion regaled them with all the ways in which Jaime would stand up for him, defending him against children, and even their own father, who would bully him for being different.

The conversation was warm, animated and enjoyable, though Brienne mostly kept quiet, instead preferring to hear the others talk. 

“So, did you two really have a pet lion growing up?” Sansa had leaned forward conspiratorially. “That’s always been the rumor.”

“Oh yes,” Tyrion replied in mock seriousness.

Jaime grinned, sharing in the joke. “Well, he was rather small.”

“Like me!”

“Not much mane to speak of.” 

“Acted more like a house cat than a lion, really.”

“Do you know,” Jaime feigned shock. “I think he _was_ a house cat.”

Brienne had smiled, appreciating the easy banter the brothers have. Their shared history is as clear as the matching grins on their faces, even if their physical similarities end there. 

“Well _I_ had a direwolf,” Sansa teased.

Tyrion’s eyes had gleamed at her willingness to keep up the ruse. “I know a joke about a direwolf,” he’d prompted. “What did the direwolf say when the man came upon a him in the forest?”

Sansa had smiled a wicked grin as she provided the punchline. “Are you going to clean that up?”

“That is a _terrible_ joke,” Jaime laughed, shaking his head.

Brienne didn’t get it, but she knew it had to have been dirty from the way Jaime’s eyes darted to her, gauging her reaction.

By the time the main course arrived, Tyrion and Sansa had become so enamored with one another that neither Brienne nor Jaime could hope to get a word in edgewise.

After the meal, Sansa drags Brienne with her to the bathroom. Brienne can’t help but smile slyly, watching as Sansa reapplies her lipstick. 

“What? Someone hasn’t made me laugh like that in years.” Furtively, Sansa glances at the door. “You don’t think Jaime would think it’s weird if we, you know…”

Brienne narrows her eyes in confusion, before comprehension dawns on her. “Oh!” She exclaims, barely concealing her surprise. “No, I mean, I don’t see how that’s any of his business—”

“Good, because I think I really like him.” Sansa smacks her lips together, slipping the lipstick back into her purse. “I know he’s not, like, my usual _type_. But I think that’s a good thing, don’t you?”

Brienne does. But it’s a complicated reality to find herself in. The fact that beautiful and captivating Sansa—who could merely bat her eyelashes and steal the heart of any man of her choosing—is not the least bit bothered by Tyrion’s unconventional stature and all that comes with it, has Brienne questioning everything she’s ever believed about herself.

The thought slips from her mind and catches in her chest just as they rejoin Jaime and Tyrion outside. 

“Brienne Tarth, I must thank you for sharing the burden these months past.” Tyrion extends his hand up towards her. “One can only take so much of his wallowing.”

“Tyrion,” Jaime warns. 

“I jest,” Tyrion grins as he plants a polite kiss to her outstretched hand, mouthing thank you. 

“Come on,” Jaime gestures to his brother. “I’ll walk you home.”

“Oh!” Sansa exclaims a little too loudly. “You know what, I think Tyrion and I are going in the same direction.”

“That’s right,” Tyrion agrees. “So there’s no need, we’ll just share a cab.”

Sansa throws her arm out to hail one as he’s speaking.

“Oh…kay,” Jaime responds, drawing the syllables out a little too long. He looks to Brienne for help; she replies with a weak shrug. 

A taxi arrives with almost comical efficiency, and Tyrion and Sansa wave farewell as they pour themselves in. 

Jaime looks perplexed as he watches the taxi disappear down the street. “What just happened?”

“I think our friend just made off with your brother.” Brienne cannot suppress her grin.

“I suppose it could’ve been worse, he could’ve hit it off with you.”

Brienne’s not sure how to take that, but she senses some jealousy in his tone. 

“They’ll certainly get some odd looks,” Jaime continues, though his tone is kind.

_Like the way people look at us?_ Brienne wonders. _The pitying stares you pretend not to notice, when strangers wonder what a man who looks like you is doing out with a beast like me?_

Brienne tries to shake the thought. This isn’t about her. “Sansa doesn’t care about all that,” she supplies. “She doesn’t like to talk about it, but she’s had some really bad boyfriends in the past. Guys that seemed great on paper but treated her horribly. If everything you’ve said about your brother is true, he could be really good for her.”

Jaime doesn’t seem convinced, still processing the evening. Frowning, he falls into step with her as they set off down the street.

————————————————

“Don’t you think they’re moving too fast?” Brienne asks.

Jaime is fiddling with an espresso machine on display, trying to remember if Tyrion even likes espresso. He and Brienne are out shopping for a housewarming gift for his brother and Sansa, who had hit if off so spectacularly that they’ve decided to move in together after only a few months of dating.

“I thought you said they’d be good for each other?”

She crosses her arms. “You’re really okay with this?”

He shrugs. He’d overcome his initial shock at their relationship once he saw how much Sansa truly cares for his brother. “Well, they’re happy. That’s a rare enough thing.”

A familiar crease appears between her eyebrows. He knows what she’s thinking—he’s thinking it too. What’s the harm in taking things slow? But Tyrion’s never had much luck with women, finding they had trouble seeing past his dwarfism, or else were only willing to see past it in hopes of getting their hands on some of the Lannister fortune. His brother’s dating history is comprised of a trail of women who ultimately cared very little for him. If a woman such as Sansa—charming, intelligent, and rich enough from her own family’s status to not have any need for social climbing—has fallen just as much in love with Tyrion as he is with her, Jaime is happy to support them. 

So yes, although they do seem to be moving things along at breakneck speed, he understands why his brother is highly motivated. 

Jaime abandons the espresso machine as another display catches his eye. “Oh look, this’ll be perfect,” he says, crossing the store to the object in question.

Brienne follows him, skeptical. “You think the perfect gift is…a karaoke machine?”

He ignores her, picking up the microphone and eagerly pressing the “play” button. The unmistakable first few notes of “The Bear and the Maiden Fair” begin to play and Jaime lights up—Brienne _hates_ this song.

“Oh Jaime shut it off, you know I don’t like this song.” He loves being able to predict her ire, almost as much as he loves making her freckled cheeks flush pink as a result. 

“You have to sing it, those are the rules of karaoke.”

“There are not _rules_ in karaoke—”

“ _A bear there was, a bear, a bear!_ ” Jaimes sings over her protests. She buries her face in her hands. “ _All black and brown, and covered with hair. The bear! The bear!_ ”

“This song is im _moral_ ,” she groans, exasperated.

“No, you just have a dirty mind.” He dangles the other microphone towards her. “ _Oh come they said, oh come to the fair! The fair? Said he, but I'm a bear! All black and brown, and covered with hair!_ ”

She rolls her eyes, but takes the microphone at his insistence. “ _And down the road from here to there. From here! To there! Three boys, a goat and a dancing bear! They danced and spun, all the way to the fair!_ ” Her singing voice is prettier than he’d imagined it to be.

“ _The fair! The fair!_ ” Jaime does his best to harmonize. He looks to Brienne, wanting to see her reaction, but his face drops when he sees what’s behind her. 

He can’t believe it—he’s somehow managed to avoid this moment for nearly a year. But now here she is, stalking over to them with her arm draped through Robert Baratheon’s, a smug look on her perfect face. 

Cersei. 

“What, I’m not that off-key, am I?” Brienne asks.

“No. It’s Cersei. She’s coming over here.”

Brienne’s eyes widen, reflecting his own growing panic. She turns, her body blocking him a little from Cersei’s approach, almost protectively.

“Cousin,” Cersei purrs. “How long has it been?”

Jaime says nothing. He feels almost paralyzed, seeing her again. He wonders how she can stand there exchanging pleasantries and act as if she has not destroyed him.

“Robert dear, you remember my cousin Jaime?”

Robert nods gruffly, clearly disinterested. “Stupid move, quitting the company like that.”

Jaime thinks Robert’s something of an authority on stupid, not having much in the way of intellect himself. “Cheers.”

“Aren’t you going to introduce me to your…” Cersei’s eyes glint cruelly as she rakes them over Brienne. “…friend?”

Brienne tenses perceptibly. Jaime presses a hand to her shoulder, trying to let her know he’s okay. “Brienne, this is my cousin Cersei and her…boyfriend. Robert Baratheon.”

“Fiancé,” Cersei interjects. “We’re getting married next month.”

Jaime blinks at her. Actually, maybe he’s not okay.

“How nice for you,” Brienne replies with false kindness. 

“You know, I should thank you,” Cersei continues before Jaime can recover. “Uncle Twyin’s going to name me his successor, now that you’re gone. I’ll be running the company in due time.”

Jaime can’t think of anything he’d like to do less. Water torture, maybe. But even that has more appeal than subjecting himself to any further grooming at his father’s hand. 

Cersei smirks at his silence. “Aren’t you going to congratulate me?”

He takes a moment to look at her—to really _see_ her. It’s as if he’s laying eyes on her for the first time. Even when they were children, he always thought she was the most captivating girl he’d ever set eyes on. But looking at her now, he thinks her beauty seems to be designed for cruelty. She is all sharp edges. The perfection of her appearance, once titillating to him, now exhausts him. The emerald eyes he always thought matched his own drip with a venom he knows he does not possess. 

What an odd thing, to be awake to it for the first time in his life.

He slides his hand down to clasp Brienne’s, steering her to the exit. “No, I don’t think I will.”

————————————————

“Are you okay?” Brienne is watching Jaime warily. He’s scowling at the door in front of them as they wait for Tyrion and Sansa to buzz them in. Though he managed to get the last word with Cersei, he’s barely spoken in the aftermath.

“I’m fine,” he replies with forced lightness.

“Do you want to talk about it? Before we go inside?” They’re supposed to be happy for Tyrion and Sansa, and Brienne fears his dark mood will cloud the day.

Though admittedly, even she’s still reeling from the encounter. She couldn’t help but notice how Cersei had seemed to enjoy toying with him, showing off her fiancé like she meant to hurt Jaime. Was this how she’d always been? He’d told Brienne, of course. Maybe not all the little details, but enough for her to have thought she understood. She realizes now she’d been vastly underestimating the situation.

The front door buzzes, unlocks. Jaime leads the way up to the apartment without bothering to answer her. When Tyrion greets them, Jaime thrusts the houseplant Brienne had ended up picking out into his brother’s hands, stalking off down the hallway without so much as a greeting. Tyrion’s eyebrows practically disappear into his hairline as he turns to her.

“We ran into Cersei today,” Brienne murmurs in explanation.

“Oh dear.”

“Exactly.”

“Sansa?” Tyrion shouts down the hall in the direction Jaime wandered off. “Come see what our guests have brought us.”

Sansa appears a moment later, clutching a mound of discarded bubble wrap in one hand. “ _What_ did you do to Jaime?” she hisses. “I’ve never seen him so cranky.”

“They just ran into Cersei,” Tyrion answers in an undertone.

Sansa clutches the bubble wrap a little tighter, a cascade of popping noises erupting under her hand. “Oh _shit_.” 

With Jaime’s blessing, Tyrion had told her the whole sordid truth when they started dating. At first she had been angry with Brienne for omitting such a significant and horrific detail, but soon understood why she’d been respecting Jaime’s privacy.

“Let’s keep things light,” Tyrion suggests. “Take his mind off it.”

Brienne’s not sure that will be possible, but she’s willing to try.

The three of them enter the living room to find Jaime sulking on the couch, flipping through a book from a stack on the coffee table. Tyrion crosses to him, resuming the work of placing them on row of low bookshelves along the wall.

“Can I get you something to drink, Jaime?” Sansa asks gently. 

He shrugs in response. “You know, I hope you’ve put your name in these,” Jaime remarks, tossing the book in his hands aside. “It will be easier to divide them back up later when things fall apart.”

Horrified, Brienne glances to Sansa, but her friend only rolls her eyes in response. 

“Thank you for that truly optimistic advice.” Tyrion’s tone is light, but his eyes betray his annoyance.

Jaime swivels around to fix Sansa with a wry smile. “We Lannisters are a rotten bunch, you’ll see.”

Sansa doesn’t falter. “Oh, I don’t know about that, I know a couple of good ones.”

“I know it feels great right now. You think you love each other, you’re happy, everything is wonderful,” Jaime continues. “But I’m telling you, it can't ever last.”

“Ah yes, my brother, the relationship expert.” Tyrion smiles tightly. Brienne can pinpoint the exact moment his eyes catch Sansa’s, because all the animosity leaves him.

Brienne is not as forgiving. “Jaime, can I talk to you outside for a minute?”

Jaime sighs, but follows her out the door and back down the stairs.

Outside, she takes a deep breath, closing her eyes. “What. Are. You. Doing.”

“I’m sorry if I can’t pretend to be happy all the time, like you,” Jaime retorts.

Her eyes snap open. “Like me? How do I pretend to be happy all the time?” She is truly baffled. 

“You never talk about Hyle, it’s like the break up didn’t bother you at all. Honestly, sometimes it seems like nothing bothers you! It’s infuriating!”

A rush of white hot anger washes over her at his presumption. “Jaime, I have been mocked and ridiculed my entire life. I’ve had to learn to not let things bother me. Which I’d been doing a great job of, might I add, until I met you!” She pauses, weighing something in her mind. He deserves to know the truth she’s guarded from him all this time. Maybe it will help him understand. “My relationship with Hyle was nothing like yours with Cersei. He only asked me out on a bet—it was a big joke with his friends. They picked the ugliest girl they could find and bet him he couldn’t bed me. I was worth 1000 dragons, and even then he couldn’t bring himself to go through with it.” 

Jaime softens immediately. In all this time, she still hadn’t trusted him enough to tell him what really happened with Hyle Hunt. But now she can’t seem to stop the words from coming out, as horrible as they are. 

“He was with me because of a bet, but _silly_ Brienne, I thought he really liked me. He felt guilty about it and stayed with me out of pity until he couldn’t force himself to pretend anymore. Is that what you want to hear?”

Her confession has stopped him in his tracks, she can tell. His mouth parts as if he’s about to say something, but all the fight has gone out of him. A long moment passes where neither of them speak.

“You never told me that,” he says quietly.

“I never told you because it is the single most mortifying thing to ever happen to me.”

He suddenly steps forward, engulfing her in a hug. “I’m sorry. I’m an idiot.” 

“I know you are,” she mumbles. 

“An idiot? Or sorry?”

“Both.”

He laughs, the sound vibrating through her.

When she first met Jaime he was biting and uncaring, the most emotionally closed-off man she’d ever met. The Jaime she’s become friends with over the past year seems like a wholly different person to that man she first knew, and she can’t help but think it’s due to his cousin’s absence from his life. As absurd as the thought is, she’s worried that seeing Cersei again might cause him to slip back into that version of himself. He had nearly done it today.

She tucks her chin over his shoulder. “Do you want her back? Cersei?” She hopes he cannot hear the waver in her voice.

“I should hate her for what she did to me. Instead I hate myself. I did things out of love for her that I’m not proud of.” He pulls back just enough to look at her. She’s become better at ignoring the way her stomach flutters when he touches her, when his green eyes bore into hers with such sincerity. Like they do now. “It was never _me_ she wanted. She wanted all the ways I could be useful to her. Why would I want to go back to being treated that way?”

“People don’t always want what’s best for them.”

He releases her completely, running a hand through his hair. “I don’t know how to feel. We have so much history. It’s all tangled up in me. Seeing her was…weird.”

He hides it well under his confusion, Brienne thinks, but of course he still loves her. How could he not?

Jaime had once called his cousin “the most beautiful woman in Westeros.” Brienne had taken it for hyperbole at the time, but she should have taken him at his word. Cersei was truly the most beautiful woman Brienne has ever seen up close. Her hair, somewhat more golden than Jaime’s, tumbled down her back in elegant curls. Her skin was flawless, making Brienne painfully aware of the many freckles marring her own. And her eyes. Crueler than Jaime’s, to be sure, but the exact same shade of emerald. It had been disquieting to see them on another, filled with so much malice. 

She’s glad that Jaime got them out of the store as quickly as he did, because she could practically feel Cersei’s judgement vibrating in the air. Brienne knows who she is; she knows what she looks like. She especially knows what she looks like standing next to Jaime, and it doesn’t take much imagination to know what Cersei must have been thinking. How out of place she looked between the two of them.

How out of place she’d always look.

————————————————

He thought he’d gotten over Cersei. He _knows_ he doesn’t want to be with her anymore, to go back to feeling the way he felt with her. Being with Cersei had been a kind of half-love; she had never loved him back as completely as he loved her. He’s realizing that for all that time he’d been in love with a woman who doesn’t exist, a woman she fabricated in order to get what she wanted from him.

But even realizing this, seeing her with no warning, seeing her on the arm of another man—it was all too much.

Brienne had talked him off a ledge, but he’s still stewing about it now, days later, as he tries to mingle with Sansa and Tyrion’s guests at their crowded housewarming party. Try as he might, improving his mood is proving a fruitless endeavor. He’s agitated about Cersei, he’s embarrassed at how he behaved in front of his brother and Sansa, and he’s furious with the man he now refers to in his head as Hyle Cunt. How could anyone treat Brienne so heartlessly? Brienne is singular. She is luminous. How could someone not treat her with the care she deserves? 

Also not helping his mood, Sansa’s cousin Jon is visiting and brought along his absurd friend Tormund. Although it was months ago, this joke of a man still seems intent on a repeat of his disastrous date with Brienne. Jaime sits near them now, rankled by Tormund’s pitiful attempts at flirting, his already-dark mood growing darker. For her part, Brienne is being far kinder than she needs to be as the brash northerner corners her into conversation. 

As if reading his thoughts, Brienne laughs politely at some inane comment Tormund has made. Jaime stands up abruptly under the pretense of getting a fresh drink. He barely has time to be alone with his thoughts before a man he barely knows thumps him on the back.

“Lannister, good to see you!” 

Jaime stares at him blankly. 

“Ron. Connington,” he supplies off of Jaime’s look. “We worked together on the Bitterbridge deal a few years back.”

“Right,” Jaime nods, dimly remembering the redhead cracking lewd jokes at a business dinner.

“How have you been? Shame you’re out of the industry now, I’ve got a good tip on some underpriced units off the Street of Silk that we could make a fortune on with the right investors.”

“Yeah, not really my thing anymore.” His eyes cast about the room, now wishing he was still over by Brienne so she could rescue him. 

Connington follows his gaze, gesturing with his drink. “Oh _gods_ , is that Brienne Tarth? Do you know her?” Before Jaime can answer, Connington continues. “My father did say she’d moved here a few years ago. Might need to rethink my social circles if I’m ending up at the same parties as Brienne the Beauty.”

Somehow Jaime does not think this nickname is meant as a compliment.

“Our fathers set us up on a date years ago. I took one look at her and left. You should’ve seen the look on her face,” Connington chuckles. Jaime does not. “Absolute cow. I mean honestly, I’ll never understand what my father was thinking.”

An odd thing is happening. A strange buzzing is growing in his ears, drowning out the other man’s obnoxious voice. Jaime feels himself clenching and unclenching his maimed hand. He hasn’t hit anyone with it since the accident. He wonders, almost calmly, what it would feel like to try it out on Connington’s smug face.

“Look, she’s even put on makeup. Gods know why she bothers, there’s no disguising that much ugly—”

He doesn’t feel his fist connecting with Connington, but it surely must have. Because there he is, sprawled on the ground now in front of Jaime, clutching his bleeding nose in stunned silence. 

“Jaime!” Brienne appears, grabbing his arm. He is suddenly aware of the quiet that’s fallen over the room, the way everyone is looking at him. “What’s gotten into you?”

He gesture vaguely at the man on the floor. “He was being very rude.” 

Recognition dawns in her eyes. Her grip tightens as she steers him towards the door. “Come on, I’m taking you home.”

His hand begins to throb on the walk back to his apartment. He’s not sure if the blood on his knuckles is Connington’s or his own, and he looks at it with with a sort of detached wonder. Brienne is completely silent as he trails her obediently. He senses it would not be wise to initiate conversation just yet.

When they reach his building she holds out her hand for his key, which he hands over without a word. She does not speak until they’ve climbed the three flights of stairs and she’s let them into his apartment.

She walks a few paces into the living room before turning to face him, her expression serious. “You are not my knight in shining armor, Jaime.”

“You told me that once before.”

“I can defend myself.”

“I know you can.”

“What were you thinking?”

He can safely say he was decidedly _not_ thinking. He halfheartedly lifts a shoulder in response.

“I know you’re still upset from running into Cersei the other day, but you can’t go around punching people at parties to take out your frustrations.”

Had it been misplaced anger over Cersei? He really doesn’t think so. The more he thinks about it, he’s beginning to feel more lucid than he has in a while, actually.

She just her chin towards his hand, the dried blood smeared across his fist. “Are you hurt?”

He looks down at it, unable to hide a wince as he tries to flex it.

“Come on, let’s get that cleaned up.” He follows her into his kitchen, allowing her to hold his hand under the tap and run warm water and soap over it. It feels nice, her touching him this way. It feels tender. 

Once the blood is washed clean, she directs him over to the couch while she rummages through his freezer for ice.

“Just when I think I know you,” she mutters, perching herself on the coffee table in front of him.

He looks up at her from the couch. “I think you know me better than anyone.”

She seems confused by that. “You’ve known Cersei your whole life.”

“She’s never really known me, though. She never wanted to know me. She wanted me to be something I wasn’t, and I tried so hard to be that man because I thought she was what I wanted.” He’s trying to tell her something, but he doesn’t have the words to explain it clearly. 

She does not look at him, but her fingers seem to tremble as she presses the tea towel of ice to his knuckles. “What do you want now?”

What does he want? Does she really want to know?

He swallows hard, placing his free hand over hers. Her eyes snap up to meet his with a question, her lips parting ever so. 

His heart feels like it might leap out of his chest, surely she can hear it. “Brienne…”

Her phone rings, the shrill sound piercing the fragile moment.

She jumps, dropping the makeshift ice pack and fishes the device out of her pocket. “It’s a Tarth number, hang on,” she says, flustered. 

He lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. What had he been about to do? He barely hears what she’s saying into the phone over his own pounding heart, but he senses an immediate shift in her demeanor. 

“Thank you.” She finishes the call quietly. She stands there, staring at the phone in her hand. 

“What?” he asks. “Was it Connington? Is he going to press charges?” 

She takes a shuddering breath before finding his eyes again, and he can tell immediately that anything they might have been on the cusp of has been shattered. “My father died.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You may be saying “hey, nobody died in When Harry Met Sally” and you are CORRECT, however what you’ve forgotten is that I am addicted to angst and my brain wouldn’t drop this. RIP to Selwyn, we hardly knew ye. 
> 
> HUGE thanks to @perkymcbadsuit on tumblr for helping fix the clunkiest paragraph ever. You are the G.O.A.T. 
> 
> Chapter title is from the song “Shoulders” by Levi Matthan


	9. and i want you to unravel me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brienne returns to Tarth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve edited this chapter within an inch of its life and I’m still not totally satisfied, but if I keep changing it I’m going to drive myself crazy. So I’m publishing a little earlier than usual to stop myself from tweaking it into oblivion, and so I can devote my full attention to finishing up the final chapter. I also want to flag that the rating has been updated—I originally meant for this to stay a hard M, but I think it might have tipped over to E and I wanted to be sure to reflect that just in case. Apologies if that's not your thing! Or if you think it should stay M, please let me know!

She buries him next to her mother, next to Galladon. The willow tree beside their graves seems taller since her last visit. She stands under it as the septon intones on and on, trying to remember her father’s smile, how her mother’s arms felt around her, what Galladon’s laugh sounded like, but it has been so long. 

Now she’s the only one left.

Her hair had refused to behave that morning, not that her father would have cared, but she wanted to look her best for him. The black woolen dress she wears feels too tight, the material too scratchy, the neckline feels like it’s suffocating her. She can’t remember what they talked about the last time they spoke, what her last words were to him. Had she told him she loved him? Did he know how much?

Her father’s friends and coworkers come to the house after, pressing casseroles into her hands and murmuring condolences against her unscarred cheek. His many ex-girlfriends huddle together sharing stories, alternating between fond laughter and dabbing at their eyes with scraps of tissue. She doesn’t even remember most of their names. 

She’s surrounded by people, and she feels so alone.

She told her friends to stay in King’s Landing. With only one flight in and out of Tarth each week, she didn’t want them to be stuck here with her. She didn’t want them putting their lives on hold to come watch her grieve. She told them she wants to do this alone, but really she just doesn’t want them to see her broken. She’s ashamed of the kind of daughter she had been, how little she had visited him. They’d see it. 

Hours pass as she floats through the guests, barely keeping up with conversation, aching for when the house will be empty and she can be alone with her grief. She finds herself perched on the arm of the couch, barely listening as her father’s friend Goodwin speaks to her, when the door opens. 

Her first thought is that she’s never seen him in a suit before. 

Her second thought is barely realized, just his name and the knowledge that her legs are carrying her across the floor to him as his eyes seek her out in the small crowd. Jaime.

She engulfs him in a crushing hug, her eyes squeezing closed against the tears threatening to fall. “I told you not to come,” she mumbles into the crisp fabric of his blazer.

His hands are warm where they’re pressed into her back. “I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner. I have to drive back in the morning, but I couldn’t leave you here alone.”

“You drove here?” She pulls back in disbelief. “But you haven’t driven since…”

“I got a rental and white-knuckled it for the first couple of hours, but by the time I was through the Kingswood I was doing better.” He smiles his Jaime smile, like driving a car for the first time in three years is no big deal. “Almost missed the last ferry, I had to pull over so much.”

Brienne wraps her arms around him again. She can’t believe he would do that for her. She’d told him not to come, but of course he knew her better than that. He’d missed the only flight, so he forced himself to face his trauma, all so he could be here for her. 

“You could’ve left me at Harrenhal, but you stayed,” he murmurs into her hair. “I needed you then. You need me now.”

She lets herself cry then, holding on to him for dear life.

Later, after the last of the mourners leave, Jaime insists on finishing the washing up. He squeezes her hand and tells her to get some rest. She stands in her childhood bedroom and can hear him now, the running water and the clinking of dishes the only sounds in the quiet of the now-empty house.

She can’t bring herself to turn the light on, standing instead in the darkened room, feeling both nostalgic and detached from the girl who used to sleep here. It hadn’t been that long ago. 

She looks at her rowing trophies where they sit atop a shelf over her dresser. They shine faintly with each sweep of the nearby lighthouse beacon. She’ll have to start packing up the house in the morning, deciding what to bring back with her, what to keep in storage here on Tarth, what to get rid of. It feels overwhelming. 

She looks down at her hands, the unpainted fingernails, the hard callouses on her palms from the oars. Why couldn’t she have just been the daughter he wanted her to be? The daughter he deserved? 

She wonders if Galladon would have been a better child than her. If he would have been married by now, if her father would have been able to hold a grandchild before he died. She hadn’t given him those things. Her father always told her he loved her, that he was proud of her, and yet she still feels like a disappointment in so many ways. She always thought that she could try harder, that there was some magic formula she could unlock to grow into the person she thought she ought to be. She wanted to be a good daughter to him, but she also wanted to be the son he lost. She thinks she ended up being neither. 

There are just some things she isn’t very good at. _Love_ eludes her. 

It had never been something she felt as keenly as she does now, the _wanting_ for something more. She wants to believe she can do things on her own; she _knows_ she can. She wants to believe she’s happy this way. Content. But sometimes…sometimes the thought of waking up next to someone, the thought of sharing in their secret smiles, of dancing with them in the kitchen, of fighting for space in front of the bathroom mirror, the thought of loving someone so much they’d want to make a child with her, one she could have placed in her father’s arms while he smiled up at her, his heart fit to burst; sometimes her desire for that sneaks up out of the hidden tender places of her heart and nearly chokes her with the wanting. 

The sensible part of her thinks there’s more to life than love, but still, does that mean she should not want it? Does the wanting make her weak?

But love could not keep her father alive. Love could not keep her mother and brother alive. And they had been so loved. Did they know?

Her chest tightens with the full extent of her grief, and she throws open a window to inhale the familiar salty air of Tarth. _Home,_ she thinks. _What is left for me here with dad gone?_ The thought coils around her chest, and she gulps in more of the warm night air. The beacon sweeps around again. She watches it, she counts her breaths. Waits for it to come back around.

 _I have friends in King’s Landing,_ she reminds herself. _I have Jaime. I have Sansa and Tyrion, and Margaery. There are people who care for me. That is love, too._

But is it enough?

 _Jaime._ She’s been trying so hard to bury her unwanted feelings for him. There was a time she couldn’t stand him, and now she can’t imagine her life without him in it. Her best friend. But he will never be more than that. He would never _want_ to be more than that. 

_But I’m in love with him._

It’s the first time she allows herself to acknowledge it. She feels unsteady under the weight of the truth.

The sounds from the kitchen have stopped, and she can hear Jaime climbing the stairs. Had he read her mind? Are her thoughts that loud? She turns, finds him leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed and shirt sleeves rolled up. “You know, I think I’ve only ever seen you in a dress once before. At New Dawn.”

She’s unable to stop the tears from welling in her eyes again at just the sound of his voice. Hating her weakness she brings her hands up to press against her eyes, tries to hold them in. 

His face falls at the sight of her, and he pushes off the doorframe to cross the room. “Hey,” he says softly, a hand on her shoulder. “Do you want to be alone? Do you want me to go?”

“No, of course not.” She shakes her head. “I can’t tell you how much it means to me that you came.”

“I’m sorry I never met him,” he says gently.

She wipes her eyes. “I just keep thinking of all the things I never did for him. I never brought my friends home to meet him.”

“That’s not your fault, you’ve been busy.”

“I was the only child he had left…he deserved better than me. The joke.”

“Brienne.”

No one says her name quite like Jaime. It sounds like a song, coming from him. She likes the way it sounds on his lips. 

_I love him. So much._

“Where is this coming from?” he asks sternly. When she doesn’t answer, he reaches to tilt her face to look at him. The beacon illuminates his face and there is so much concern in his eyes. 

There’s a tension in the air that she has only felt before in fleeting moments. The same thing she felt just before she got the call about her father. The same thing she thought she’d imagined while dancing with him at Margaery’s New Dawn party. Like something’s vibrating in the space between them. She doesn’t want to ignore it this time. 

His hand lingers on her jaw and she closes her eyes, leans into his touch before her resolve can dissipate.

His mouth is there waiting for her when she leans forward. She cannot be sure what she’s doing, only that once their lips meet suddenly nothing else matters. Her guilt over her father, the lingering humiliation from what happened with Hyle and from seeing Ron Connington again—it all melts away as she brings her hand up to trace the line of his neck as he draws her closer, her world reducing to the feeling of his mouth slanted across hers.

His warmth, his smell, the slight scent of dish soap lingering on his skin. The taste of him mingles with the salt of her tears. He seems steadfast under her hands, so sure. Safe. A moment ago she had been standing in her childhood home, wondering where she belongs. But now, enveloped in Jaime’s arms, she realizes _this_ is home. 

He’s tentative at first, like he’s not sure how much she’ll accept, so she’s the one to deepen the kiss by slipping her tongue between his lips. He groans into her then, and her pulse quickens at the sound. She hears herself make a small noise in return and distantly thinks that it had never been like this with Hyle. 

“What are we doing?” Jaime whispers between kisses.

She shakes her head, draws him closer still. She can feel him, hard where he fits against her, where she’s already throbbing for him. If she thinks too hard she’ll have to stop this. And she can’t stop, she _can’t_. 

Instead she glides her hands over his ribs, his waist, pulls his shirt out from where it’s tucked in. Fumbles with the buttons as his tongue presses into her mouth. His breath quickens and he lets go of her long enough to let her slide the shirt off his shoulders. It fall to the ground and he brings his hands up to cradle the back of her head, to rake his fingers through her hair. He kisses the side of her face like he doesn’t even notice the scar, runs his tongue along her jaw line, finds his way to her neck and nips at the soft skin there. 

She presses a hand to his hip, walking him backwards towards the bed. When his knees hit the edge he sits before her. She edges her way between his legs, taking his face in her hands, leaning down to keep kissing him. She never wants to stop kissing him.

There’s too much fabric between them. She has to let go of his face to reach around and unzip her dress, has to stand up a moment to slip it off. Jaime leans back on his elbows, taking her in. No one’s ever looked at her like this, like she’s something holy. 

And she almost can’t look at him, he’s so perfect. He’s taut like a bow, muscles clenched under his golden skin, anticipatory. His cheeks are flushed and his hair is mussed, and even in the dark she can see the heat swirling in his eyes. It’s a Jaime she’s never seen before. She thinks, _I did that._

So she doesn’t think about if she’s too big or too muscular or how many freckles she’s covered in as she straddles his lap. She bends over his body, finding his mouth again, driving him down even further until he’s flat on his back underneath her. 

Reaching between them she begins to unbuckle his belt. He reaches with her, and together they rid him of his trousers. He lifts his hips a little to help slide them off, and her eyes flutter closed with so little between them now, gasping at the friction of him against her.

He leans up a little, using his tongue to toy with her through the fabric of her bra, the horrible plain underwear she wore under her funeral dress today. If only she had known. He trails his lips up her sternum, chasing them with his tongue, and it’s not enough, she needs him on all of her. So she sits up, reaches around again to unhook the bra. He surges up with her as she does. Takes what little there is of her into his mouth, teasing a nipple with tongue then teeth then tongue again. 

Clutching his shoulders, she thinks she could stay in this moment forever. But then his hips shift under her and his cock brushes against where she’s burning for him. She presses herself down against him, and Jaime grunts into her chest. How incredible, to elicit such a noise from him. She grinds against him again and he groans louder, abandoning her breast to find her lips again, slipping his fingers through her hair to pull her back down to his face.

His fingers dance up and down the back of her thighs as she leans over him, as she rubs herself against him. One of his hands abandons its path to dip under the damp fabric separating them. She cries out when his thumb finds where she wants him most, and again when a finger slides inside, quickly followed by another. 

She slips her own fingers under his waistband and closes her hand around him before she can change her mind. He arches into her a little, another groan escaping him, his own hand stuttering for a moment inside her, and she can’t believe they’re doing this. She strokes him gently, unsure of the pressure—she’d only done this with Hyle once—gasping into his mouth each time he bucks up into her hand. 

Suddenly, his fingers slip out of her completely and she loses her grip on him as he hitches a knee around her hip. It seems effortless, the way he flips them over. 

He finds her lips again with his own, pressing her into a bruising kiss. She reaches for his waist again, pushing his underwear down this time, using a foot to wrestle it off completely.

He bends over her, trailing kisses first down her neck, her chest, the hard-muscled planes of her stomach. She tenses inadvertently under him. She’s never been bare in front of anyone before, and briefly wonders what she must look like to him, if it bothers him that she’s not soft and dainty the way other women are. The way Cersei is. The thought is driven from her mind quickly when his fingers curl over elastic, dragging the last remaining bit of clothing separating them down and off her legs. 

He disappears over the edge of the bed for a moment, rustling around through his clothing. When he reappears it’s with a condom wrapper between his fingers. “Courtesy of Tyrion,” he shrugs, his voice husky as he rips it open and rolls it on.

When he’s done he meets her again for a kiss, taking her bottom lip between his as he slides his scarred hand up her ribcage to cup the small swell of her breast. She pants into his mouth as he does it. She wraps a leg over his, trying to draw him to where she needs him.

He breaks the kiss just long enough to breathe a question against her skin. “Should we talk about this?” He knows she’s never done this before.

She thinks that would be the rational thing to do, to have a conversation about what this means, what is happening between them. But anything rational in her evaporated the moment his lips found hers. They’re long past rational.

“No.” She slides her other leg up, holding him there.

“Are you sure?” He murmurs the question into the space between them, his breath hot on her face. His eyes are soft and dark, and so close to hers.

“Yes,” she sighs. “Yes.”

Her skin’s so sensitive she feels like she might break into a million pieces. His touch is the only thing holding her together.

“Because we can stop, if you don’t want—”

She’s on fire, can feel herself trembling beneath him like a more delicate girl than she’ll ever be. She can feel the hard length of his cock pressed against the inside of her thigh, waiting. 

“Jaime.” She drags his mouth back to hers. “Stop. Talking.” 

“I just wanted to hear you say my name.” He grins into the kiss, hitching her leg into a better position and guiding himself into her in one exquisite movement. 

The noise she makes is somewhere between a wince and a moan. He steadies himself as she gets used to it, gets used to the new dull ache of him inside her. He brings his hand up to caress her puckered cheek, and the act is so unexpectedly tender that she almost can’t breathe. 

He begins to rock his hips in slow movements and she tries to match him. She wraps her arms around his back and never wants to let him go. 

It’s nothing like she’d expected. It’s everything like she’d expected. It’s so much better than she’d expected. As her hips chase his own thrust for thrust, she feels the pleasure building where they’re joined, white hot and throbbing and unstoppable. Noises that she’s never heard herself make before escape her lips, and they only seems to spur him on, his breath growing shallower and shallower with each one. She lets her eyelids fall closed, lost in sensation.

“No,” he gasps desperately above her. “Look at me. Brienne, I need to see you.”

Her eyes flutter open diligently and his own are only inches away. He holds her there in the intensity of his gaze while he deliberately quickens the movement of his hips, drawing more little sounds out of her as he sinks deeper. 

He presses his forehead to hers, so near to her that her eyes lose focus. “Let me help you,” he murmurs, breath hot on her face. 

She tries to speak, but all she can do is swallow and nod. 

He shifts slightly and then his fingers are back between them, slick with her, rubbing circles over her swollen clit, and oh it’s too much, it’s too much, she’s right there; she breaks apart, clenching around him, and she might make another noise or she might say his name, but she can’t be sure. When her eyes refocus Jaime’s still moving above her, grunting into her neck, pulsing inside her before collapsing on her chest.

He stays there, their sweat-slicked skin pressed together, as the last waves of pleasure roll through her. She feels stretched, sated.

He nuzzles her cheek with his nose, follows it with a kiss. Then he sighs, finally slipping out of her to roll onto his back. They lie next to each other starting up at the ceiling, hazy in the afterglow, both seemingly in disbelief of what just happened.

Jaime shifts beside her, and she realizes he’s divesting himself of the condom. “There’s um,” Brienne starts, and in speaking she feels like she’s breaking a spell. “There’s a bin next to the bed there.” 

She feels his weight shift as he deals with it. She’s suddenly very aware of her nakedness. Of his nakedness. Of the way she can still feel where he’d just been inside her, moments before. She remembers Margaery saying how no one tells women they should pee after sex. Sex. She’s just had sex, with Jaime. Jaime, her best friend. Jaime, who she’s secretly, painfully in love with.

She sits up in bed just as he’s climbing back in. He kisses her bare shoulder, looking at her questioningly. 

“I’ll be right back,” she whispers.

He smiles up at her, his fingertips trailing up and down her back. “Don’t be long.”

She shivers at his touch, almost can’t believe how turned on she still is by him. She pushes off the bed with some reluctance. 

Brienne never imagined she’d be padding down the hallway of her childhood home, naked as her name day, having just been thoroughly wrecked by the most handsome man she’s ever laid eyes upon. _How_ did it happen? She’d somehow gone from grieving her father to fucking her best friend, and she’s unable to connect the dots now that it’s over.

Because despite whatever had just taken over them, she knows he cannot possibly love her as she loves him. Jaime loves her as a friend, and she feels like she has betrayed him by loving him even more. Because Jaime has loved only one woman his whole life, and she was a devastatingly beautiful one at that. How could Brienne ever measure up to Cersei, in his mind? She feels herself firmly back in reality. She tries to rationalize what had just happened. She knows Jaime had not been intimate with anyone since Cersei, and perhaps what happened is simply down to timing. It had only been a week since they’d run into his cousin and her fiancé, and Jaime had been in a foul mood ever since, even letting his emotions get the better of him at Sansa and Tyrion’s party. Perhaps Cersei was still on his mind, and he’d slept with Brienne to prove to himself that he’s moved on. Or maybe they simply got carried away, needing to find release in someone else’s body, the dark room and the sea breeze bewitching them. Maybe it was inevitable. 

Alone with herself now she feels the self-doubt beginning to creep in, feels powerless against the tide of intrusive thoughts that wash over her. She is spoiled for choice, her mind full of a lifetime of negative feelings about her appearance, her worthiness, and her desirability to choose from. 

_Shit._

She lingers in the bathroom, cleaning herself up and worrying over what to say to Jaime. But she needn’t have troubled herself; blessedly, he is sound asleep when she returns. She fishes through a drawer for one of the old t-shirts she’d left behind, pulling it on before quietly sliding under the covers next to him. 

He is so beautiful, sleeping there beside her. She can’t help but take this opportunity to watch him. His hair is soft and rumpled from what they’ve just done, his eyelashes quiver as he dreams. Her hand travels the short distance to his face, and she lets herself ghost her fingertips along the sharp edge of his jawline, feels the slight stubble growing there, sweeps his hair away from his temple. She wishes this could be real.

Suddenly panicking, she wonders if maybe he will want to keep this going, now that they’ve crossed this line. She doesn’t think she could bear a friends-with-benefits situation with him, knowing all the while that she will never have his whole heart. How will she even be able to look at him in the light of day now, knowing what he looks like when he moves above her? Knowing the sounds he drew out of her? She’ll have to find a way to brush it off in the morning, to assure him that she doesn’t expect anything of him, that she’s not entertaining any girlish notions. Maybe if she can get them over that initial awkwardness, they’ll be able to go back to the way things were.

As if reading her thoughts, he sighs in his sleep. Brienne draws her hand away. It physically pains her to look at him any longer, so she rolls over; it’s easier to watch shadows dance across the walls. _He is not mine,_ she reminds herself, repeating it like a mantra as she drifts off to sleep. 

When she wakes in the early morning, it is to find Jaime’s body once again intertwined with her own. In his sleep he’d tucked his head into the back of her neck, wrapped an arm over her, slid a foot between her ankles. She wishes she could savor this moment, the moment before reality will settle in between them. The ache in her chest almost chokes her.

She gently extricates herself from his embrace, taking care not to wake him. 

Two hours later she can hear Jaime coming down the stairs, the old wood creaking every few steps. He finds her in the kitchen, and seems almost sheepish when he sees that she’s fully dressed while he’s in only his boxers. 

He brings his scarred hand up to scratch the back of his head. “Good morning,” he says, his voice still raspy with sleep.

“I made some coffee,” she responds, indicating the pot and empty mug on the counter.

He seems puzzled for a moment, but steps into the kitchen to accept her offer. He’s strangely quiet.

She realizes he, too, must be searching for something to say, some way to explain away what they’d done. She knows if she can get through this she can make it easier for them both. The tension is becoming unbearable. 

“Listen, we don’t have to make it more than it was.” She leans against the counter and crosses her arms, trying for casual.

“We don’t—wait what?” He was about to take a sip, but brings the mug away from his lips as if startled.

“I was sad, and not thinking clearly, and you were…there.”

His eyes flash with something, and she can’t tell if it’s anger or hurt. “Oh. Right.”

It’s coming out all wrong. “I only mean—I know you hadn’t slept with anyone since Cersei, and I hadn’t slept with anyone ever, and it’s been an emotional week for both of us, we both needed some kind of release. So I think maybe we got carried away. Maybe it was a mistake.”

“A mistake.” Oh it’s anger, then.

“I’m giving you an out.”

“An out.” 

She really wishes he would stop repeating her.

She can’t look at him any longer, glancing at the microwave clock instead. “Listen, if you want to make it back to King’s Landing tonight you’ll need to take the mid-morning ferry; it leaves in an hour.”

“So that’s it, then?”

She looks down, nudging a spot on the floor with her toe. “What’s there to say?”

He scoffs. “Right. Fine.” He puts his mug down, the coffee inside untouched, and heads back upstairs. After a moment she hears the shower turn on, and this is when she lets herself cry. 

She’s pulled herself together enough by the time Jaime reappears downstairs, freshly showered and dressed in the change of clothes he’d brought. She joins him by the front door as he’s hefting his overnight bag onto his shoulder. 

He pauses with one hand on the doorknob. “How long do you intend to stay here?” His expression is unreadable, which unnerves her.

“I’m not sure,” she replies. “I need to settle the estate. I thought I might do some research for my book while I’m here.”

“Will you call me?”

Her answer catches in her throat. She nods instead.

He nods back, and he suddenly looks so sad. A thousand pleas suddenly bubble up in her throat, but before she can figure out how to form the words, he’s gone. 

Later, after she’s walked for what must have been miles along the beach, she calls Sansa. Her friend takes the emotional whiplash of the news in stride, at first elated for Brienne, then upset, finally landing on what feels like disappointment.

“Oh Brienne, you didn’t even give him a chance.”

“I didn’t need to, he’d been upset about seeing Cersei again, and I was upset about dad. I know that’s all it was.”

“Did he say that? You two have been through too much for that to be all it was,” Sansa says, earnest. 

Brienne sighs. She knows Sansa means well, but she comes from a different world of experience, a world where she’s never had to question whether a man is interested in her or not. “You don’t understand. I’ve met Cersei. I’ve never seen someone so beautiful.”

“I don’t know how you can say that, Brienne. There’s more to love than the way someone looks. Take Tyrion and me. I don’t care what he looks like, or what people think when they see us together. None of that matters when you love someone. And from what Tyrion says, Cersei’s plenty ugly on the inside. I can’t believe you’d think Jaime that shallow.”

“I don’t! But how could he go from that to _me?_ ” She takes a shuddering breath. “I’m ugly. A man like Jaime…he sees me as a friend, nothing more. It was just a moment of weakness.” 

“Oh my gods, if I could reach through the phone and throttle you, I would.” Sansa’s voice rises a little on the other end. “ _He_ faced down some severe PTSD to get in a car and drive 6 hours to be with you. He saw through the facade you put up for the rest of us, and knew you needed him there. And given what happened last night, I’d say he definitely sees you as more than ‘just a friend.’”

Brienne says nothing. She cannot allow herself to hope…

“Brienne, I think you might be ruining something that could make you truly, incandescently happy. Don’t shut him out.”

What could she say? _Sorry, but I’m in love with you? Sorry for taking advantage of our friendship?_ Exposing her true feelings only to have them unreciprocated—and worse, to ruin their friendship with her unwanted confession—she’s not sure she can take that. She needs more time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you hate me now? Sorry for the emotional whiplash in this chapter. But don’t despair, we all know how this story ends ;) We'll get back into Jaime's head in the next chapter.
> 
> Chapter title is from “The Few Things” by JP Saxe with Charlotte Lawrence


	10. i want to love you madly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A wedding, a misunderstanding, and New Dawn, again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter really came down to the wire, but by some miracle I managed to finish it last night. Thank you all for reading, and leaving kudos and so many lovely comments. Hearing your reactions is always a highlight of posting!

**Jaime:** made it back in one piece

_Read: 5:43 pm_

**Jaime:** didn’t wreck the rental car or anything

_Read:_ 5:51 pm

**Jaime:** as u’ll recall that’s a massive improvement 4 me

_Read: 5:59 pm_

**Jaime:** saw some dolphins from the ferry, that was pretty cool

_Read: 6:20 pm_

**Jaime:** please can we just…

**Jaime:** i don’t want things to be weird 

**Jaime:** we can pretend it never happened

**Jaime:** i’ll do whatever you want

_Read: 11:34 pm_

Crossing the line from friendship to something more wasn’t all that difficult, in the end. He wanted to reach out and kiss her, so he did, and after that he found he couldn’t stop. 

She tasted of salt.

He woke up the morning after, in that bed by himself with an uncertain emptiness beside him where Brienne should have been, and he had known. Somehow he’d fucked up the best thing in his life. 

He’d ended up masking his hurt with anger, which probably hadn’t helped matters much. In his defense, he’d gone to sleep the happiest he’d ever been, and woke up to the cause of that happiness acting cold and distant. He’d had a lifetime of that from Cersei, but he hadn’t expected it from Brienne. It stung.

In retrospect, his biggest mistake had been falling asleep after. If only he had stayed up, they could have talked about what happened right then. He could have banished any foolish notions from her mind. But the trip to Tarth had been long, and he had been full of adrenaline in his anxiety to be driving again, and then they were alone and she was kissing him back, and it was an absolute revelation. 

So maybe he hadn’t been thinking as clearly as he could have been. It all feels hazy now, shrouded in lust. Maybe he should have thought a little harder about the implications of making love to his best friend on the same day she buried her father. Maybe that hadn’t been very noble of him. But hindsight aside, what happened between them…it had been miraculous. Life-changing. Like everything was falling into place; like he had been born for the sole purpose of finding her and loving her, and was finally able to do just that. The thing is, he thought what happened meant she knew. That they felt the same. Instead, she brushed it off as if it had been some foolish accident. 

So he’d left. He regrets it now, of course. He regretted it as soon as he drove onto the ferry. He should have stayed with her, they should have found the words to talk about it. They could have put a name to it. They could have gone back up to her bedroom and he could have showed her all the ways she should be cherished. Instead, he left her behind on Tarth and that’s where she remains, five weeks later. 

She’s ostensibly doing research for her book, but it’s clear that she’s avoiding him. She never answers when he calls, and her infrequent replies to his texts are terse. He doesn’t know what to say to her to make it right, so he tries to keep things light and friendly. He thinks he can live without her love, without her body joined with his, but he cannot live with her out of his life completely. 

The longer her silence stretches on, the more he feels a like a monster. The worst kind of person. Had he lost his senses? His best friend had been grieving. He had meant to comfort her, and instead of supporting her through her pain he’d taken her to bed. Her first. Surely he should have realized she wasn’t in a state to be making that choice. And if that’s the case, how could she ever forgive him?

Or, he thinks, maybe she knew exactly what she was choosing. Maybe she needed him for that, but nothing more, and he’s the fool with his heart all tied up in knots over it.

The thing is though, he misses her. He’d made himself miss Cersei when he was away at Riverrun, because he told himself that being away from her was painful, like he was missing a part of himself. He’d done a good job of convincing himself, at the time.

Missing Brienne is completely different. She’s not a phantom limb, or a part of his routine he’d become used to. No, missing Brienne is as if all the stars have suddenly disappeared from the sky and he can’t find his way, like he’s lost in the desert and she is the water he so desperately seeks.

It’s in missing her that he realizes just how much he loves her. Deeper and truer even than the love he bore for Cersei, despite the decades that love had to blossom. 

And no, it had not been love at first sight. But he thinks it has grown quietly inside him ever since that hospital room, ever since she sat with him in silence for no other reason than she thought he shouldn’t be alone. When she had every right to hate him. It had grown so slowly he hadn’t even realized it was happening, until she had worked her way into his marrow.

So it’s really rather inconvenient that she won’t talk to him, now that he knows.

He prods Tyrion weekly for any details that Sansa may have let slip, trying not to sound too pathetic while doing so. But from what he gathers, Brienne hasn’t been in much contact with them either. More than a month into her self-imposed exile and he’s running out of ways to casually ask after her.

“Well, she’ll have to come back soon,” Tyrion says brightly one day over lunch, easily seeing through his attempts at subtlety. “Sansa and I are getting married next week.”

Jaime chokes on his sandwich. “You’re _what?_ ”

“I’ve had a hell of a time trying to bring it up in conversation, you know. I didn’t want to intrude on your moping. But yes, we’ve decided to get married.”

“And it’s happening next week?” 

“Sansa doesn’t want a big wedding; we’re just going to have a casual ceremony. Her family was already due for a visit. Though apparently Margaery has taken this as a personal challenge and has vowed to throw together the best short-notice wedding King’s Landing has ever seen.” Tyrion seems entirely too amused. 

“And Brienne will be there, you think?” Jaime asks, eagerly.

“Well I’d hope so, she’s agreed to be Sansa’s Maid of Honor. A crucial part of that role is to actually turn up,” Tyrion replies. “Oh, that reminds me. I’m making you my Best Man. And before you protest, you should know that I don’t actually like anyone else enough so you don’t have a choice.”

“Of course I will. You know I will.” For the first time since leaving Tarth, Jaime’s feeling something other than misery. He’s happy for his brother. “And Tyrion? Congratulations. Truly.”

When the day of the wedding arrives Jaime is all nerves, knowing he’ll finally see Brienne again and not knowing how she’ll act. Not knowing if she’ll even want to speak with him. He’s supposed to be helping Tyrion get dressed and ready for the ceremony, but his anxiety is causing tremors to run through his bad hand. He can’t even manage to do up his own cufflinks, let alone deal with his brother’s. 

“Seven hells, you’d think you’re the one getting married. Come here.” Tyrion sighs.

Jaime extends his wrists out to his brother, letting Tyrion do what he could not. 

“Don’t worry,” Tyrion says, securing the first cuff in place. “Brienne is rational. I’m almost positive she won’t lop your head off in front of our wedding guests. Surely she’ll have the sense to wait until the reception’s over.”

“I’m worried I’ve fucked it up beyond repair.”

Tyrion appraises him, his eyes gentle. “Jaime, have you considered that perhaps you simply need to tell her that you’re in love with her?”

“And have her run off screaming?”

“I really don’t think that’s how she’d react.”

“She just about did, back on Tarth,” he says. “She’s seen every dark miserable part of me. I was a fool to think she could see past that and want anything more.”

“You really think so little of yourself?” Tyrion shakes his head. He looks pained. “You’re the best man I know. And I know she sees that part of you, too, not just the self-deprecating masochist part you’re so fond of getting hung up on.”

“You just saying that because you don’t want me looking depressed in all your wedding photos.”

“No,” Tyrion replies seriously, all humor gone. “I’m saying that because you deserve happiness.”

Jaime looks down at his brother, surprised to see Tyrion’s eyes have gone glassy. “I—” 

Margaery pokes her head through the door. “Everybody decent? Time to get out there.”

Tyrion clears his throat, moving on to his own cuffs. “Yes, don’t worry, we’re ready.”

Jaime reaches for their suit jackets in an attempt to hide the sudden wave of emotion that’s caused his throat to thicken. 

“Giving him some brotherly advice?” Margaery smiles sweetly, holding the door for them. 

Jaime shakes his head, his voice gruff. “Just saying how proud I am of him.”

“Save something for the speech, will you?” Tyrion reaches for the tissues as Margaery shepherds them out.

True to her word, Margaery really has outdone herself. Jaime wonders what sort of witchcraft she must employ to be able to pull off something like this on such short notice. She had transformed a nearby garden center’s greenhouse with twinkling lights hanging from the piping, and candles dotting every available surface. Rows of simple wooden chairs, that will later be turned to surround tables and allow for a dance floor, face a simple wedding arch made of ancient weirwood, in keeping with the Northern traditions. 

Jaime stands beside his brother at the altar as the cellist begins playing, the instrument’s warm tones filling the space. The bride herself is stunning in a simple white gown, however it is Brienne, walking ahead of her in a gauzy dress the same shade of sapphire as the seas surrounding Tarth, that he can’t take his eyes off. 

She studiously avoids eye contact with him during the ceremony, though he knows she must feel his gaze burning into her. After the couple has sworn their vows before the old gods and new, and the guests have started up on the dance floor, Jaime is feeling braver. He resolves to, at the very least, clear the air with her.

He’s seeking her out amongst the crowd when a small brown-haired girl suddenly appears at his elbow, looking horribly displeased with her formal dress. She must be Sansa’s little sister.

“Arya, is it?” Jaime asks, conversationally.

She peers up at him, her grey eyes hard. She can’t be older than sixteen. “My sister said you’re Tyrion’s brother. And that you’re Brienne’s friend.” The way she says it sounds like a threat. 

He shrugs.

“I like Brienne. She doesn’t treat me like a kid, the way everyone else does,” Arya continues. “If you hurt her I’ll hurt you, understand?”

Jaime nearly spits out his drink. Arya narrows her eyes, no hint of a joke hidden in her expression. Disquieted by the amount of severity residing in such a small package, he nods. “Understood.”

She gestures with her soda to the far side of the space. “She’s over there, by the way. You’re incredibly obvious.” 

Arya slips away and Jaime doesn’t know whether to apologize or thank her. But she’s right—Brienne stands by herself, smiling as she watches the bride and groom dance. He makes his way over to her and she blessedly does not make to flee, instead pulling herself up to her full height as he sidles up beside her.

“Was wondering if you were ever coming back.” He tries to keep his tone light. “How did everything go with the estate?”

She’s so stiff. Het thinks she must have spent the rest of her time on Tarth rebuilding her walls twice as high. He wants to reach out to her, to feel the tension leave her body under his touch. It was somehow so easy that night, but now he fears what her response would be. Would she recoil from him? Her lovely eyes are set like steel when they finally flicker to his.

“I decided to keep the house,” she answers. His heart sinks. “It’s all paid off, so I thought I could rent it out when I’m here and go back sometimes.”

He almost sighs in relief. So she plans to stay here, at least. “And your book?”

She looks away. “I was able to gain access to the Tarth Historical Society’s archives, there’s a lot of good material there.”

“That’s amazing. I’d love to read a draft, sometime.” 

Without warning she grabs his arm, dragging him outside.

Once they are alone, Brienne rounds on him. “What is the _matter_ with you?”

“The matter with _me?_ Are you serious?”

“You’re acting like everything’s fine!”

That incenses him. “Well how am I supposed to act, then? You’ve barely spoken to me since we— in over a month. I’m trying to be normal, here.”

“How can you possibly—”

“What do you want from me?”

She looks past him, refusing to meet his eye. “I don’t know,” she admits.

“Don’t you think we should talk about it?”

She crosses her arms and shrugs halfheartedly.

“Because you sure seem to have a lot of ideas about what I feel,” he presses.

“I know you, Jaime.”

“Oh _do_ tell.” 

He’s ready for a fight, angered by her assumptions, but as quickly as she’d riled she deflates before him. “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I don’t know why I’m being like this.”

For a moment his heart soars, then, “I was too upset with myself that morning to be able to talk to you about it. I’m sorry if I was unkind,” she continues.

He swallows. He’s missed being around her so much that thinks he’s willing to keep her in his life, whatever her terms might be. Even if the wanting kills him. “I’m sorry, too. I’ve been a wreck. I feel like I took advantage of you.”

She shakes her head. “I don’t want you to think that.”

“Then what happened?”

She doesn’t answer.

His hand twitches at his side, itching to touch her. “I’ve missed you.”

“I missed you too, Jaime,” she sighs. “Can we agree to move past it?”

He’s not sure what he’ll do with all the love he has for her. But if it means keeping her in his life, maybe he can tuck it away somewhere. Or perhaps with some focused meditation, and a few promises to the gods, he can somehow perform the magic required to mutate it back into the friendship she wants.

So he nods in agreement, and Brienne rewards him with a halfhearted smile and a chaste hug before returning to the party. 

Jaime follows after her, stopping short when he notices Arya staring at him from across the dance floor. She maintains eye contact, tracing a murderous line across her neck. He shudders and stalks over to the bar instead, where he finds his brother procuring two glasses of champagne.

“Your new goodsister is terrifying,” Jaime mutters, grabbing one of the flutes and downing it in a single gulp.

Tyrion motions to the bartender for another glass. “Indeed. She warned me if I ever hurt Sansa she’d steal into our room at night and slide a knife into my belly,” Tyrion smiles up at him cheerfully. “Kids these days.” His eyes follow Jaime’s, to where Brienne now dances with Sansa’s older brother, Robb. “Not going well, then?”

“We’re friends again. I think.”

“Really. Friends.”

“I don’t think she’d accept anything more. Or believe me, apparently.”

“If the two of you would stop dancing around your feelings and actually acknowledge them, I think you’d save yourselves a pair of very pointless headaches.”

Jaime scowls. “We’ve agreed to forget it for the sake of our friendship. It’s the sensible thing to do.”

“Oh yes, very sensible.” Tyrion replies, mockingly. “Of all the idiotic things you’ve done in your life, this may take the cake.” Disappointed, he shakes his head, heading off to rejoin his bride.

————————————————

Brienne does not regret much in life, but the way she acted that morning on Tarth is something she cannot forgive herself for. Instead she’d kept away, ashamed of how she’d treated him. Ashamed that she encouraged him into bed with her only to be confused by what it meant. After a while, it seemed like the easiest thing to do was to stay there, to save herself the embarrassment of facing him again.

And anyway, what was there to say that could fix it? She’d spent two weeks with crippling embarrassment and grief as her constant companions, then another week wondering if she’d made up the whole night in her head, then the rest of her time on Tarth thinking she’d made her peace with the whole situation. 

Which, of course, went out the window the moment she laid eyes on him again.

Try as they might, they are unable to fall back into their old rhythm. Jaime is too deferential, seeming to weigh each word in his head before speaking. For her part, Brienne constantly feels on edge, too concerned that her true feelings will poke through and upend their friendship again.

He still shows up to cheer her on at races, but always has an excuse ready for why he needs to leave immediately after. She attempts to recommence their weekly breakfasts, but where they had once been filled with friendly banter they are now rife with awkward silences. _Of course he feels uncomfortable around me,_ she thinks, _he’s probably worried that anything he says might lead me on. He wouldn’t want me to think there’s hope for something more between us._

New Dawn is somehow upon them again, and it seems to her that so much has happened in the past year. It breaks her heart to think of how happily she had spent the holiday last year, carefree with Jaime as her date. 

She hadn’t asked him if he’d be attending, but finds herself searching the guests at Margaery’s party for him anyway. 

Tyrion catches her. “He’s not coming,” he says slyly. “He claims to have never liked this holiday. Though I seem to recall him telling me what a wonderful time he had, last year.”

Great. Yet another thing she’s managed to ruin for Jaime. 

“Why, he’s probably home all alone, right now.”

Brienne shoots him a look. “I’m sure he’s told you everything. I already feel badly enough about it, you know.”

“I’m going to get in trouble for this,” Tyrion says. “Sansa forbade me from meddling.”

“What do you mean?” Brienne feigns ignorance. 

Tyrion puts his drink down, as if this conversation requires his full attention. “Oh don’t play stupid with me. You and Jaime, obviously. It’s clear as day. If you can honestly tell me you’re not in love with him, I’ll never mention it again. But I don’t think you can.”

“It doesn’t matter what I feel. I’m his friend, and while I know he _cares_ for me, he couldn’t possibly…reciprocate.” She can feel herself blushing. Is it really that obvious? “Look at me. We don’t go together. What happened back home was just a kind man’s attempt at comfort.”

“Brienne, come on, you’re clever. Think about it.”

“What do you mean?” The room feels like it’s getting warmer. 

“That’s not who Jaime _is._ For him, intimacy and love have always been one and the same. I’m not even sure he realizes it himself, but it’s why he believed for so long that Cersei loved him. She used intimacy as a weapon, as a way to entrap him, as a way to trick him into believing her lies. He was loyal to her for half his life, after which _you_ were the only woman he ever looked at twice. Jaime Lannister is not a man who has casual sex. Of _course_ it meant something to him. He might not have expressed his feelings to you in so many words, but my brother’s never been one for naked vulnerability. He was trying to show you, instead.”

Brienne lets his words sink in. “Oh,” she says, stunned. She’s been trying so hard to protect herself that she hadn’t been able to see the truth in front of her. But when Tyrion puts it that way…and she’d gone and treated Jaime like every other man she’d ever had to guard herself against. “Oh gods. What have I been doing?”

Tyrion smiles up at her. “I’ll get your coat, shall I?”

————————————————

Alone, again.

He tells himself last year had just been a fluke, that he really does prefer spending this holiday on his own. Tyrion had tried to persuade him to join them at Margaery’s annual party, but Jaime couldn’t muster up the motivation. He knew Brienne would be there, though she hadn’t mentioned the invitation to him, and he didn’t think he’d be able keep the act up all night, anyway. 

_Besides,_ he thinks, punching the couch cushion into a more comfortable shape, _I much prefer sweatpants to formalwear._

He’s trying to convince himself he’s much happier eating the take away that he’s just had delivered, rather than the gourmet spread Margaery had last year. He’s pulling noodles out of a plastic container when his intercom buzzes, cutting through the silence and causing him to jump. Did the delivery guy forget something?

“Hey man, I think it’s all here, did I stiff you on the tip or something?” Jaime says into the intercom.

A long silence follows.

“Jaime. Please buzz me in.” The voice is so far from what he expects to hear, so jarring, that he nearly shouts out in shock.

The fear that had so defined his upbringing propels him into autopilot, and he presses the button to unlock the front door for Tywin Lannister.

His father appears in his doorway moments later, looking completely out-of-place, impeccable in a tuxedo and topcoat. He says nothing to his son upon entering the apartment, merely takes in the room around him with a sort of snide detachment.

Apropos of nothing, Tywin says, “I hear your brother’s gone and disgraced the family again, marrying that Stark girl.”

Jaime’s jaw tightens in familiar anger. “The Starks are a good family, one of the oldest in Westeros. I thought you’d be pleased.”

His father picks up a box of cereal from the table. Examines it as if he’s never seen cereal before which, given his father, is entirely possible. 

“Surely this isn’t how you wish to spend New Dawn,” he continues, ignoring Jaime’s rebuttal.

“You really don’t get it, do you?”

Tywin exhales loudly through his nose. “Come now. You’ve had your little experiment, and I’m happy to have let you try it. But it’s time to come back to the company. I’m willing to rewrite the succession plan to include you.”

“Cousin Cersei not working out as you’d hoped?” Jaime replies, lip curling. 

Tywin wrinkles his nose slightly. “I don’t think she’s cut out for it.”

As much as he can’t stand her for how she’d manipulated so much of his life, he knows that’s not the case. “Well I think she’s perfect for it. She’s like a mini you—cutthroat, lacking almost entirely in empathy—”

His father cuts him off. “Jaime, _you_ are my son and heir. You are a _Lannister._ ” He gestures to the living room, the Pentoshi takeout containers on the coffee table, the muted television flickering behind them. “You’re not meant for _this_ kind of life.”

Jaime pauses. Maybe not, but what _is_ he meant for? Brienne’s face flashes across his mind.

_She_ is what he’s meant for. She wants to pretend there’s not something more there, but he knows her. He knows she’s afraid, because he’s afraid too.

And suddenly he realizes, he’s not going to let her go without a fight. 

“What are you doing?” Tywin looks affronted as Jaime reaches into the closet for a coat. 

“You need to leave, and I would appreciate if you never came by here again.” He holds the door open for his father. “I have some place I need to be.”

“Jaime—”

Jaime does his best impersonation of his father’s own withering stare.

“Such a disappointment.” Tywin shakes his head.

Jaime could care less what his father thinks of him right now. There’s only one person on his mind. 

He waits until he’s sure Tywin is gone, taking a few deep breaths to steady himself. He grabs his phone off the coffee table on his way out, leaving his dinner to grow cold. He’s too impatient to wait for the elevator, taking the stairs two at a time instead. He checks his phone once he’s made it to the lobby, thinking he should text Sansa or Margaery to make sure Brienne’s still at the party, and sees he has a new message from his brother.

**Tyrion:** I hope you brushed your teeth today, because Brienne’s on her way over

Jaime stops dead in his tracks. He looks up. There she is, as if he had willed her there, standing outside the door with a finger poised over the buzzer.

Heart racing, he steps out next to her.

“Oh, I—” She’s startled. Her nose is pink from the cold and all he wants to do his hold her.

“I lied,” Jaime blurts out.

She stares at him. “I did, too.”

“I don’t want to be friends with you.”

Her face falls. “Oh…”

“No, wait, that came out wrong.” He shakes his head. “What I mean is, I want to be more than that.” 

He knows she’s nervous. Like if he makes one wrong move, she’ll flee. But he has to make sure she knows. 

“Brienne, don’t you understand?” He presses on, his voice taking on a desperate edge. “I wanted to wake up next to you that morning, and every morning, for the rest of my life. And if you hate me for it, so be it, but I need you to know.”

“If I hated you, this would be easier,” she looks stricken. He wants to kiss her. “Because I know you can’t possibly…I know I don’t hold a candle to Cersei. I thought maybe you were lonely, and I was there.”

“What has Cersei got to do with it?” He doesn’t understand what she’s getting at; Cersei is the furthest thing from his mind. Maybe if he blurts it all out instead, it will become clearer to her. “Let me just…I need to say this. And then you can hate me after if you want, but at least I’ll have said it.” He takes a deep breath. “I was afraid for so long that there was something rotten in me that couldn’t be fixed. That I didn’t deserve any better. But then you came along. I’d never met anyone like you. And by some miracle you were willing to become my friend— _me,_ Jaime Lannister, human disaster and consummate asshole. If you could stand to be around me, maybe I wasn’t a lost cause, after all. You’ve made me feel like I’m worth a damn. How could I not love you for that?” Tears form in her eyes as he speaks. “And I’ve tried to stop loving you, because I know I could never be worthy of you. But I can’t do it. I love you.”

“Love?” Her voice is pained.

“How could it be anything else? I love that you think waking up at 7 is ‘sleeping in.’ I love that you hum along to the radio and don’t even realize you’re doing it. I love how strong you are, physically, yes, but your spirit, too. I love that you would spend the rest of our lives challenging me, and I’d never get bored of it. You’re extraordinary. And it’s not fair that you shut me out, because you don’t think I could love you. But I do, Brienne. I love you. And I’m going to keep saying it until you believe me, because I think you love me too. Because when you realize you want the spend the rest of your life with someone, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.”

She once wondered aloud if love is something she’s meant for. How can she not know how much she is loved?

“I love you. And maybe you don’t want to hear it, and maybe you really don’t love me back, but I can’t keep pretending.”

She shakes her head, her blue eyes alive and sparkling. “You’re insufferable, do you know that?” 

A grin spreads across his face. “So you _do_ love me.”

“Yes, Jaime,” she sighs, as he takes one of her hands in his. “I love you. I love you very much.”

He pulls her forward then, and she comes to him like water, melting into his embrace. He can feel her smiling under his lips and he grins along with her. When they break apart they are both beaming at each other, radiantly happy, trembling under the promise of what is to come.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title is from the song “Love You Madly” by Dan Mangan
> 
> A couple of notes to wrap things up—
> 
> -I in no way planned for Tyrion to be the one to make Brienne see sense, but it turns out I really enjoy writing him so it just sort of happened. I also suppose I could have done without bringing Tywin in, in the last act no less, but I felt that I’d mentioned him so much and how crucial his parenting has been to Jaime’s development, that I wanted to bring him in for a quick cameo to make Jaime realize how far he has come, and to give him that push he needed to finally declare his love to Brienne.
> 
> -Credit is due once again to When Harry Met Sally and Harry’s speech at the end, from which I borrowed heavily. 
> 
> -The song “Anyone” by Jack Garratt is a whole ass mood for Jaime and Brienne this chapter.
> 
> -Also I became super disappointed in myself when I realized this fic doesn’t pass the Bechdel test, but then again I guess When Harry Met Sally doesn’t either, so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> the end!

**Author's Note:**

> Fic title is from the song "For Me, It's You" by Lo Moon, and chapter title is from the song "Under Your Skin" by Tall Heights.


End file.
